WaterNews for February 1, 2002

WaterNews is a weekly on-line publication that announces publications, policies, and activities of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's Office of Water.

Inside this week's WaterNews:

1. EPA Proposes To Reduce Nutrients Discharged from Meat and Poultry Processing Facilities

2. EPA Releases Report to Congress on Controlling Combined Sewer Overflows

1) EPA Proposes To Reduce Nutrients Discharged from Meat and Poultry Processing Facilities

EPA is proposing new wastewater discharge limits for poultry processing facilities and revised wastewater discharge limits for large meat processing facilities. These limits would reduce pollutants, particularly nitrogen, from these facilities by roughly 87 million pounds per year. The proposed standards would apply to facilities that slaughter animals and process meat or poultry into products, including meat cuts, sausage, hams, canned meats and partially cooked products such as chicken nuggets. They also would apply to facilities that render meat and poultry by-products into edible and inedible products such as pet or animal feed. EPA estimates that it will cost the meat and poultry processing industry about $80 million per year to comply with the proposed regulations. For more information, visit http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/guide/ on the Internet.

2) EPA Releases Report to Congress on Controlling Combined Sewer Overflows

EPA released to Congress on January 29, 2002 a report on the Implementation and Enforcement of its 1994 Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) Control Policy. This report, required in the 2000 Wet Weather Quality Act, documents progress made by EPA, States and municipalities in implementing and enforcing the CSO policy. The report says that while EPA States and municipalities have made significant progress under the policy in controlling CSOs, there are still challenges that must be overcome. These challenges include finding the resources to implement the CSO control programs necessary to achieve appropriate environmental objectives, integrating the review of water quality standards with the communities's development of their CSO control plans, and the development and implementation of better information management systems for assessing the public health and environmental improvements resulting from these long-term CSO control plans. For more information, visit http://www.epa.gov/npdes and follow the link for "Combined Sewer Overflows". The report will be available for download on this site beginning Friday, February 1, 2002. Within several weeks, copies of the Report will be available as both hard copy and CD-ROM.

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TRY OUR OTHER WEB SITES: To learn more about watersheds, visit http://www.epa.gov/owow/watershed/ on the Internet.
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