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Statement of Need: Discharges of wastewater from industrial facilities contain pollutants that may cause deleterious effects on surface waters and adverse impacts on human health and aquatic life. Discharges from metal products and machinery (MP&M) facilities contain priority and nonconventional metals, organics and conventional pollutants. Many of these pollutants are human carcinogens, human systemic toxicants, aquatic life toxicants, or all of the above. MP&M facilities discharge wastewater directly to surface waters of the United States or indirectly to surface waters via sewer systems and publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) and contribute to the pollution of surface waters and POTW sludges.

Summary of the Legal Basis: The Clean Water Act requires the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to establish national technology-based standards to control or eliminate the discharge of pollutants into surface water and to POTWs. This proposed regulation is required under a 1992 consent decree with the Natural Resources Defense Council and must be developed according to the schedule in that decree.

Alternatives: EPA's proposed rule described three major treatment alternatives the Agency had considered in developing its recommended approach. The three alternatives included: (a) end-of-pipe treatment controls, (b) end-of-pipe controls plus in-process controls, and (c) end-of-pipe treatment (e.g., reverse osmosis, ion exchange). The Agency proposed the second alternative with an exemption for low-flow indirect discharges of process wastewater (i.e., those discharging less than one million gallons per year to publicly owned treatment works) as its recommended approach.

Anticipated Costs and Benefits: At the time of proposal, the MP&M Phase I Guidelines were estimated to impose a total capital cost for direct and indirect dischargers of $414 million and an estimated annualized cost of $161 million. Total monetized benefits were estimated to range from $70 million to $207 million (in 1994 dollars). The proposed MP&M phase I guidelines were estimated to result in a reduction of almost a million pounds of toxic pollutants discharged by the industry each year, thereby reducing violations of water quality standards (which were bodies across the country). The proposed limits were also estimated to reduce the metals content of municipal sludge, thereby allowing approximately 184 additional POTWs to make beneficial use of 439,000 dry metric tons of sewage sludge annually by land applying the sludge rather than incinerating or landfilling it. The expected cost savings for sewage sludge disposal is estimated to range from $39 million to $86 million (in 1994 dollars). Final cost and benefits will be determined once EPA completes its review of the public comments on the proposed rule and makes decisions on the final rule.

Risks: EPA estimates that the proposed limitations would eliminate 2.7 cancer cases per year (from a baseline of about 11.1 cases estimated at the current discharge level); lower risk indicator for systemic, noncancer risks of illness; and lessen excursions of health-based water quality toxic effect levels.