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EPARulemakingEPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819

Rulemaking for the Steam Electric Power Generating Effluent Limitations Guidelines

RIN
2040-AG41
Last modified
Jun 23, 2026
Comment window
closed 41d ago
League of Women Voters filings
2

Activity

League of Women Voters filed 2 comments on this docket between Jan 22, 2020 and Apr 25, 2023. 141 other organizations filed here. The comment window closed 41d ago.

What League of Women Voters filed (2)

Apr 25, 2023· Comment submitted by League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis (LWVSTL)· EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819-9984

The League of Women Voters of Metro St. Louis (LWVSTL) supports strengthening discharge limits in 40 CFR Part 423. This could improve human health by reducing the polluted water being discharged into our rivers, streams, and other drinking water sources. US EPA must ensure that steam electric power generating effluent guidelines require utilities, including Ameren, to provide protection of our regional water that meets the requirements of the Clean Water Act of 1987. Pollution has a disproportionate health burden on those living near polluting facilities and infrastructures like power plants, factories, rivers, and roads. Shouldering the larger health burden are low income, minority, elderly, fixed income families and tribal communities. During the transition away from coal, the environment needs to be protected and the strengthening of the discharge limits is critical. Ameren's Labadie coal plant sits upstream of St. Louis and is currently operating out of compliance with the Clean Water Act, threatening the water quality for millions of Missourians. Since 2008, LWVSTL has advocated to protect the region from health threats caused by Ameren's coal plants, including the Labadie coal ash ponds, using our Natural Resource position to "promote an environmental beneficial to life through the protection and wise management of natural resources in the public interest," as well as our water, air and climate positions. Missourians who live in Franklin, St. Charles and St. Louis Counties, plus the city of St. Louis and other downstream communities, should not be subjected to water contamination and other effects of coal ash pollution. The toxic contaminants in coal ash can cause cancer and other adverse health impacts, including reproductive, neurological, respiratory, and developmental harm. Coal ash more often negatively impacts low-income, rural and minority communities which already face numerous other environmental justice concerns. The US EPA must require groundwater monitoring at all current coal ash disposal sites and require discharges to meet the Clean Water Act. Now, more than ever, it is critical to have strong regulations with enforcement in place that will protect communities from the adverse health impacts of toxic pollution. The US EPA must ensure that the water pollution from Ameren's Labadie coal plant complies with the Clean Water Act, and stronger effluent guidelines to limit the harmful particulate pollution for the safety of all and maintains a water temperature that is beneficial for the ecology of the Missouri and Mississippi River. See attached file.

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Jan 22, 2020· Comment submitted by Angie Rosser, Executive Director of West Virginia Rivers Coalition on behalf of New River Conservancy, League of Women Voters of West Virginia, and Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition· EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0819-8321

Filed on regulations.gov — full text not in the inline record.

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Abstract

EPA announced on September 15, 2009 the start of a rulemaking process to revise the effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the steam electric power generating point source category (i.e., steam electric power plants). EPA’s decision to proceed with a rulemaking was made upon reviewing the findings from a multi-year study of wastewater discharges from power plants.EPA’s review of wastewater discharges from power plants, and the treatment technologies available to reduce pollutant discharges, has demonstrated the need to update the current national effluent guidelines regulations. The current regulations, which were last updated in 1982, do not adequately address the pollutants being discharged and have not kept pace with changes that have occurred in the electric power industry over the last three decades.

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Co-filers (141)

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