[Federal Register: September 15, 2008 (Volume 73, Number 179)]
[Notices]
[Page 53246-53249]
From the Federal Register Online via GPO Access [wais.access.gpo.gov]
[DOCID:fr15se08-68]
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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY
[FRL-OW-FRL-8715-3]
Revision of National Recommended Water Quality Criteria for
Acrolein and Phenol
AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
ACTION: Notice of availability of updated draft criteria and request
for scientific views.
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SUMMARY: Pursuant to section 304(a) of the Clean Water Act (CWA), the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is announcing the revision and
availability of draft updated national recommended water quality
criteria for the protection of human health for acrolein and phenol.
The draft criteria are partial updates based on EPA's Methodology for
Deriving Ambient Water Quality Criteria for the Protection of Human
Health (2000), EPA-822-B-00-004 (2000 Human Health Methodology) and
will supersede previously published criteria when final. EPA's
recommended section 304(a) water quality criteria provide guidance to
States and authorized Tribes in adopting water quality standards for
protecting human health and provide guidance to EPA for promulgating
Federal regulations under CWA section 303(c), when such action is
necessary.
DATES: Scientific views must be received on or before October 30, 2008.
[[Page 53247]]
Comments postmarked after this date may not be considered.
ADDRESSES: Submit your scientific views, identified by Docket ID No.
EPA-HQ-OW-2008-0553, by one of the following methods:
http://www.regulations.gov: Follow the on-line
instructions for submitting comments.
E-mail: OW-Docket@epa.gov.
Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency; EPA Docket
Center (EPA/DC) Water Docket, MC 2822T; 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW.,
Washington, DC 20460.
Hand Delivery: EPA Docket Center, 1301 Constitution Ave.,
NW., EPA West, Room 3334, Washington, DC. Such deliveries are only
accepted during the Docket's normal hours of operation, and special
arrangements should be made for deliveries of boxed information.
Instructions: Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OW-2008-
0553. EPA's policy is that all comments received will be included in
the public docket without change and may be made available online at
http://www.regulations.gov, including any personal information
provided, unless the comment includes information claimed to be
Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other information whose
disclosure is restricted by statute. Do not submit information that you
consider to be CBI or otherwise protected through http://
www.regulations.gov or e-mail. The http://www.regulations.gov Web site
is an ``anonymous access'' system, which means EPA will not know your
identity or contact information unless you provide it in the body of
your comment. If you send an e-mail comment directly to EPA without
going through http://www.regulations.gov your e-mail address will be
automatically captured and included as part of the comment that is
placed in the public docket and made available on the Internet. If you
submit an electronic comment, EPA recommends that you include your name
and other contact information in the body of your comment and with any
disk or CD-ROM you submit. If EPA cannot read your comment due to
technical difficulties and cannot contact you for clarification, EPA
may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic files should avoid
the use of special characters, any form of encryption, and be free of
any defects or viruses. For additional information about EPA's public
docket visit the EPA Docket Center homepage at http://www.epa.gov/
epahome/dockets.htm.
Docket: All documents in the docket are listed in the http://
www.regulations.gov index. Although listed in the index, some
information is not publicly available, e.g., CBI or other information
whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain other material, such
as copyrighted material, will be publicly available only in hard copy.
Publicly available docket materials are available either electronically
in http://www.regulations.gov or in hard copy at the Office of Water
Docket/EPA/DC, 1301 Constitution Ave., NW., EPA West, Room 3334,
Washington, DC. This Docket Facility is open from 8:30 a.m. until 4:30
p.m., EST, Monday through Friday, excluding legal holidays. The
telephone number for the Public Reading Room is (202) 566-1744, and the
telephone number for the Office of Water is (202) 566-2426.
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Heidi L. Bethel, Health and Ecological
Criteria Division (4304T), U.S. EPA, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW.,
Washington, DC 20460; (202) 566-2054; bethel.heidi@epa.gov.
SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:
I. What Are Water Quality Criteria?
Water quality criteria are scientifically derived numeric values
that protect aquatic life or human health from the deleterious effects
of pollutants in ambient water.
Section 304(a)(1) of the Clean Water Act requires EPA to develop
and publish and, from time to time, revise, criteria for water quality
accurately reflecting the latest scientific knowledge. Water quality
criteria developed under section 304(a) are based solely on data and
scientific judgments on the relationship between pollutant
concentrations and environmental and human health effects. Section
304(a) criteria do not reflect consideration of economic impacts or the
technological feasibility of meeting the chemical concentrations in
ambient water.
Section 304(a) criteria provide guidance to States and authorized
Tribes in adopting water quality standards that ultimately provide a
basis for controlling discharges or releases of pollutants. The
criteria also provide guidance to EPA when promulgating federal
regulations under section 303(c) when such action is necessary. Under
the CWA and its implementing regulations, States and authorized Tribes
are to adopt water quality criteria to protect designated uses (e.g.,
public water supply, recreational use, industrial use). EPA's
recommended human health water quality criteria do not substitute for
the CWA or regulations, nor are they regulations themselves. Thus,
EPA's recommended criteria do not impose legally binding requirements.
States and authorized Tribes have the discretion to adopt, where
appropriate, other scientifically defensible water quality standards
that differ from these recommendations.
II. What Are the Criteria Revisions?
EPA is today publishing an update of national recommended water
quality criteria (NRWQC) for protecting human health for acrolein and
phenol. These draft revisions are based on EPA's Methodology for
Deriving Ambient Water Quality Criteria for the Protection of Human
Health (2000), EPA-822-B-00-004 (2000 Human Health Methodology). This
methodology describes the Agency's current approach for deriving
national recommended water quality criteria to protect human health.
The draft revision of these criteria represents a partial update of
the 304(a) criteria as described in both the draft Methodology
revisions and the Federal Register Notice that accompanied the 2000
Human Health Methodology (65 FR 66444; November 3, 2000). EPA believes
that updating a limited number of components for which there are
available data or improved science (i.e., a partial update) is a
reasonable and efficient means of publishing revised 304(a) criteria
more frequently. EPA has also previously described its process for
publishing revised criteria [see National Recommended Water Quality
Criteria; Notice; Republication (63 FR 68354; December 10, 1998 or EPA
822-Z-99-001) and National Recommended Water Quality Criteria; Notice;
Republication; Correction (64 FR 19781; April 22, 1999) or the Federal
Register Notice for the 2000 Methodology]. EPA indicated that when
making minor revisions to existing criteria based on new information
pertaining to individual components of the criteria, it would typically
publish the recalculated criteria directly as the Agency's national
recommended water quality criteria.
The draft criteria for acrolein and phenol are being updated with
reference dose (RfD) values from EPA's Integrated Risk Information
System (IRIS) (http://www.epa.gov/iris). Because recalculation of these
two criteria results in significant changes, EPA is publishing them in
today's Notice in order to solicit scientific views. However, EPA does
not intend to subject this recalculation to additional peer review
because the IRIS reference doses being updated in this draft partial
criteria update have been previously peer reviewed.
[[Page 53248]]
Tables 1 and 2 below containing the current and updated draft
criteria for acrolein and phenol were prepared to assist reviewers. The
RfD values used to derive the respective criteria values are also
included in Tables 1 and 2 below.
Table 1--Updated Draft Criteria for Acrolein
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Acrolein Current criteria Updated draft criteria
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IRIS RfD.................... 0.0156 mg/(kg-d) 0.0005 mg/(kg-d) (published 6/03)
(published 1977). (http://www.epa.gov/ncea/iris/subst/0364.htm).
Water + Organisms........... 190 [mu]g/l......... 6 [mu]g/l
Organisms Only.............. 290 [mu]g/l......... 9 [mu]g/l.
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Table 2--Updated Draft Criteria for Phenol
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Phenol Current criteria Updated draft criteria
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IRIS RfD.................... 0.60 mg/(kg-d) 0.30 mg/(kg-d) (published 9/02)
(published 2/90). (http://www.epa.gov/ncea/iris/subst/0088.htm).
Water + Organisms........... 20,700 [mu]g/l...... 10,400 [mu]g/l.
Organisms Only.............. 1,700,000 [mu]g/l... 857,000 [mu]g/l.
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EPA decided to revise the existing criteria based on partially
updated components of the criteria equations in order to increase the
frequency of scientific improvements to the nationally recommended
criteria using acceptable, currently-available information. For a water
quality criterion revision based on a partial update to be considered
acceptable to EPA, a component of the criterion (e.g., the
toxicological risk assessment) should be comprehensive (e.g., a new or
revised reference dose (RfD)) or cancer dose-response assessment, as
opposed to simply a new scaling factor), stand alone, and be based on
new national or local data. The criteria for phenol and acrolein are
being updated with more recent reference doses available from EPA's
Integrated Risk Information System (IRIS). IRIS is an electronic data
base maintained by the EPA that provides chemical-specific risk
information on the relationship between chemical exposures and
estimated human health effects. Risk assessment information contained
in IRIS, except as specifically noted, has been reviewed and agreed
upon by an interdisciplinary group of scientists representing various
Program Offices within the Agency and represents Agency-wide consensus.
Therefore, updated IRIS values reflect the most current Agency science
and should be used by States and Tribes in updating or developing new
human health criteria. The Office of Science and Technology will
publish these partial updates of water quality criteria via their Water
Science Web Site (http://www.epa.gov/waterscience).
IV. What Is the Relationship Between the Water Quality Criteria and
Your State or Tribal Water Quality Standards?
As part of the water quality standards triennial review process
defined in Section 303(c)(1) of the CWA, the States and authorized
Tribes are responsible for maintaining and revising water quality
standards. Water quality standards consist of designated uses, water
quality criteria to protect those uses, a policy for antidegradation,
and general policies for application and implementation. Section
303(c)(1) requires States and authorized Tribes to review and modify,
if appropriate, their water quality standards at least once every three
years.
States and authorized Tribes must adopt water quality criteria that
protect designated uses. Protective criteria are based on a sound
scientific rationale and contain sufficient parameters or constituents
to protect the designated uses.
Consistent with 40 CFR131.21 [see: EPA Review and Approval of State
and Tribal Water Quality Standards (65 FR 24641, April 27, 2000)],
water quality criteria adopted by law or regulation by States and
authorized Tribes prior to May 30, 2000, are in effect for CWA purposes
unless superseded by federal regulations (see, for example, the
National Toxics Rule, 40 CFR 131.36; Water Quality Standards for Idaho,
40 CFR 131.33). New or revised water quality criteria adopted into law
or regulation by States and authorized Tribes on or after May 30, 2000
are in effect for CWA purposes only after EPA approval.
V. What Is the Status of Existing Recommended Criteria While They Are
Under Revision?
Water quality criteria published by EPA remain the Agency's
recommended water quality criteria until EPA revises or withdraws the
criteria. The current criteria for acrolein and phenol will remain in
effect until EPA publishes the updated criteria.
VI. Where Can I Find More Information About Water Quality Criteria and
Water Quality Standards?
For more information about water quality criteria and Water Quality
Standards refer to the following: Water Quality Standards Handbook (EPA
823-B94-005a); Advanced Notice of Proposed Rule Making (ANPRM), (63 FR
36742); Water Quality Criteria and Standards Plan--Priorities for the
Future (EPA 822-R-98-003); Guidelines and Methodologies Used in the
Preparation of Health Effects Assessment Chapters of the Consent Decree
Water Criteria Documents (45 FR 79347); Methodology for Deriving
Ambient Water Quality Criteria for the Protection of Human Health
(2000), (EPA-822-B-00-004); Guidelines for Deriving Numerical National
Water Quality Criteria for the Protection of Aquatic Organisms and
Their Uses (EPA 822/R-85-100); National Strategy for the Development of
Regional Nutrient Criteria (EPA 822-R-98-002); and EPA Review and
Approval of State and Tribal Water Quality Standards (65 FR 24641).
You can find these publications through EPA's National Service
Center for Environmental Publications (NSCEP, previously NCEPI) or on
the Office of Science and Technology's Home-page (http://www.epa.gov/
waterscience).
[[Page 53249]]
Dated: August 28, 2008.
Ephraim S. King,
Director, Office of Science and Technology.
[FR Doc. E8-21460 Filed 9-12-08; 8:45 am]
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