In August 2010 the EPA issued a notice proposing new and revised analytical methods to be used under the Clean Water Act (CWA).

The proposed rule, entitled “Guidelines Establishing Test Procedures for the Analysis of Pollutants Under the Clean Water Act; Analysis and Sampling Procedures”, will affect numerous EPA Methods, ASTM Methods, Standard Methods, and alternative test methods.

EPA methods:

Read more about the proposed CWA Methods…

By Gregory Salata, Ph.D.

The objective of environmental sampling is to quantify contamination at a given location. In situations where sample collection may result in discrete samples of a heterogeneous nature, results may be biased based on the particle size of each sub-aliquot collected at the site. One option to help reduce the errors associated with non-uniform sample composition is to use multi-increment sampling (MIS) to create a representative, homogeneous aliquot for analysis of analytes.

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EPA has finalized national effluent limitations guidelines (ELG) and new source performance standards (NSPS) for construction and development sites to help address improvement of water quality throughout the nation. While the standards focus on discharges occurring during stormwater events, these new guidelines affect all discharges of pollutants from construction activities into waterways, including dewatering and concrete washout.

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Introduction: Historical mining practices in the Coeur d’Alene River Basin (Idaho) have resulted in heavy metal contamination of soil, sediment, surface water, and groundwater. Canyon Creek, located in the upper basin, has elevated levels of dissolved zinc (average concentration ~ 3,000 μg/L), dissolved cadmium (average concentration ~ 22 μg/ L), and total lead (average concentration ~ 174 μg/L). Heavy metal loading near the mouth of Canyon Creek is influenced by surface water/groundwater interactions. Dissolved zinc concentrations in the groundwater have been detected in the 100,000 μg/L range while dissolved cadmium and lead have been detected in the hundreds to thousands μg/L ranges, respectively.

EPA’s consultant, URS Corporation (URS), developed a multi-phase treatability study to obtain quantitative information on a treatment process to effectively remove metals from the water of Canyon Creek. The treatment process incorporated different combinations of pH adjustment, chemical coagulation and coprecipitation, polymer flocculent additions, and additions of ballasted micro-sand to improve sludge settling. The results of the study will be used to help evaluate potential treatment technologies for surface water and/or groundwater at Canyon Creek. These data will also be used to help develop the pilotscale treatability study for Phase II of the study.

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