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American Council of Engineering Companies

American Council of Engineering Companies . Seventh Annual Environmental Business Conference October 12, 2011. Bruno Pigott Assistant Commissioner Office of Water Quality Indiana Department of Environmental Management. Top OWQ Priorities 2011.

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American Council of Engineering Companies

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  1. American Council of Engineering Companies Seventh Annual Environmental Business Conference October 12, 2011 Bruno Pigott Assistant Commissioner Office of Water Quality Indiana Department of Environmental Management

  2. Top OWQ Priorities 2011 • Implement new water quality monitoring strategy. • Develop new General Permit process. • Complete CSO Plan reviews. • Finish Anti-degradation rulemaking. • Focus compliance on small wastewater systems. • Deal with Nutrient Issues. • Revise Chlorides Water Quality Criteria. • Reissue NPDES permits.

  3. Implement New Water Quality Monitoring Strategy Goal: Increase our understanding of how our work affects water quality. How? Nine Year Rotating Basin Probabilisitic Monitoring Reduced Fixed Station Monitoring Increased Targeted Monitoring

  4. Develop General Permits for permits currently issued under general permit rules. EPA raised concerns about issuing general permits through rules. IDEM will convert those rules to general permits issued every five years. Statutory and rule changes will be necessary. Time frame: beyond 2011. General Permits

  5. Complete LTCP Reviews • OWQ has 16 CSO Plans to review and approve. • Mostly small communities with few resources. • Our goal is to complete the review and approval of all of the plans.

  6. Antidegradation Adoption of Antidegradation rule Work group sessions over two years. Issued a second notice of rulemaking with specific rule language. Received extensive comments. Evaluated comments, considering rule changes.

  7. Semi-Public Compliance Semi-public facilities have fewest resources and spotty compliance histories. Inspections. Compliance assistance including training on completing bench sheets. Enforcement.

  8. Deal With Nutrients • EPA is Focused on nutrients. • What we do currently. • Develop Water Quality Criteria. • Lakes • Rivers and Streams • Permits

  9. EPA Focus • Hypoxia: • Concentration of dissolved oxygen in the water column decreases to a level that can no longer support living aquatic organisms.

  10. EPA Focus • Northern Gulf of Mexico: Hypoxia defined as a concentration of dissolved oxygen less than 2 mg/L (2 ppm). • Based on observational data that fish and shrimp species normally present on the sea floor are not found with oxygen levels < 2mg/L. • First documented in 1972. • Nutrient concentrations from the Mississippi River basin have greatly changed in the last half of the 20th century. • Marked increase in the concentration of nitrogen and phosphorous in the Lower Mississippi River.

  11. EPA Focus

  12. EPA Focus • Requiring States along the Mississippi to develop state nutrient reduction strategies. • Requiring States to develop Water Quality Criteria for Phosphorus and Nitrogen. • Requiring States to place Nutrient limits in NPDES Permits.

  13. OWQ has sampled waters to develop scientifically valid criteria for nutrient Water Quality Standards in lakes. OWQ developed a first notice of rulemaking. OWQ will initiate a workgroup to discuss the standard and implementation. IDEM has not found a scientifically valid link between chlorphyll a and nutrients a green pigment found in almost all plants, algae, and cyanobacteria. Phosphorus WQC for Lakes

  14. Phosphorus Limits in NPDES Permits • Currently: Best Available Technology Limit of 1mg/l in NPDES permits that discharge up to 40 miles upstream of a lake. • Monitoring in major NPDES dischargers. • New criteria would mean a much stricter limit. • EPA has asked IDEM to impose limits using narrative criteria.

  15. Revise Chloride Criteria • Current criteria developed in 1980s based on EPA criteria. • New toxicological data shows that water hardness and sulfates influence toxicity of chloride to aquatic life. • IDEM proposing to replace the current criteria with new criteria that will vary depending on the level of hardness and sulfate in water.

  16. NPDES Permits IDEM has reissued all old backlogged NPDES individual permits except two: ArcellorMittal East ArcellorMittal West

  17. NPDES Permits • Focus: • Renewing all permits on time in real time. • Municipal Majors • Industrial Power Plants

  18. Recent NPDES Issues • Industrial: • 316a • 316b • Storm Water Requirements • Municipal: • Nutrients • Chlorides • Basement Backup Reporting

  19. Questions?

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