In June 2010, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a draft of its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Through the permitting process, the EPA is seeking to decrease the amount of pesticides discharged into waterways. The new permit, also known as the Pesticides General Permit (PGP), was developed in response to a 2009 court decision, which ruled that pesticides can be classified as pollutants under the Clean Water Act.

The EPA’s PGP authorizes the controlled release of the following substances into U.S. waterways:

Read more about EPA’s Proposed New Permit Requirements for Pesticide Discharges…

In a Federal Register notice published June 23, the EPA proposed changes to its permitting program under the Clean Water Act (CWA) to ensure the use of sufficiently sensitive analytical methods for monitoring chemical pollutants in discharge water.

Specifically, the new rule affects the CWA’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES). Its purpose is to specify that applicants and permittees must use analytical methods that are capable of detecting and measuring pollutants at, or below, current water quality criteria.

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