To investigate the effect of hardness variability
on implementation of the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (USEPA's) hardness-dependent
water quality criteria (e.g., metals), the
authors superimposed effluent hardness and flow
data from two publicly owned treatment plants
onto 15 receiving water data sets. Although
study results suggest that minimum effluent
hardness may be used to develop protective effluent
limitations for chronic cadmium, copper,
chromium (III), nickel, and zinc, the results also
suggest that in some cases significant data are
necessary to develop protective effluent hardness-
based limitations with 80% confidence.
The study supports USEPA's recommendation that
effluent limitations for hardness-dependent metals be
developed with consideration for the dynamic conditions
seen in effluent and receiving water bodies. The
authors provide guidance for implementing USEPA's
hardness-based metals criteria based on real effluent
and receiving water data sets. This generalized guidance
will help water managers and permitting officials
understand how to set metals limits that are protective
of receiving water quality. Includes 6 references, tables, figures.
| Edition : | Vol. 101 - No. 2 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 650 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 12 |
| Published : | 02/01/2009 |
