Environmental Engineering: Fundamentals and Design - Chapter 8

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# Chapter 8 Water Quality

Martin T. Auer, Alex S. Mayer, James R. Mihelcic and Noel R. Urban

## Water Quality: Backstory

A river catches fire. This might just get our attention. Images of a fire that broke out amid oil and debris on Cleveland's Cuyahoga River in 1952 remind us of how severely 20th century industrial growth impacted our nation's environment. At the heart of the problem lay state and federal government's inclination to place economic concerns above environmental amenities and the absence of any federal structure for establishing and enforcing water quality standards.

The first real piece of federal water quality legislation was the Water Pollution Control Act of 1948. This law rigorously preserved the rights of the states to control water pollution and included no water quality standards or discharge limits. The true weakness of the Act lay in its enforcement abilities, placed under control of the U.S. Surgeon General and triggered only when the problem involved “interstate waters … which endangers the health or welfare of persons in a state other than that in which the discharge originated, and is … declared to be a public nuisance.” In such a case, the Surgeon General issued a notice to the discharger and the state in which the discharge occurred; a second notice followed if no response was received in a reasonable time. Should the problem remain uncorrected, the U.S. Attorney General could bring suit against the discharger, but only with the consent of the state in which the discharge originated. In reviewing the case, the court was instructed to take into account, the practicability and … the physical and economic feasibility of securing abatement. It is little wonder that rivers caught fire.

The Ohio River provides an excellent example of transboundary water quality management issues. The Ohio drains portions of eleven states with eight significantly involved in the river's water quality: Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee and West Virginia. The cities of Pittsburgh and Cincinnati are among the major metropolitan areas along the river. In the first half of the 20th century, river water quality suffered from the discharge of sewage and industrial wastes, depleting oxygen reserves and leading to fish kills and the extirpation of aquatic life. Conditions were seen to constitute a 'grave menace to the health, welfare and recreational facilities' of the people living in the basin. Recognizing the limitations of federal powers, the eight states entered into the Ohio River Water Sanitation Compact in 1948, pledging cooperation in the abatement and control of pollution. The compact established criteria for treatment of municipal and industrial wastes and seeking to maintain a water quality downstream of discharges at least equal to that above the confluence. The Compact is administered by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) which remains a powerful advocate for the river today. The rest of the country would wait almost 25 years to enjoy the regulatory benefits now available to the people of the Ohio River basin.

In 1972, Congress passed the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments, more commonly known as the Clean Water Act. For the first time, the federal government accepted responsibility for restoring and maintaining the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation's waters. From this point ecological amenities would be placed ahead of economics. The law called for an eventual elimination of discharge of pollutants into navigable waters with an interim goal of achieving a water quality that would protect fish, shellfish and wildlife while providing for recreation. Our lakes and rivers were to once again become 'fishable-swimmable'.

Achievement of that interim goal is accomplished by establishing standards for dischargers and a system of discharge permits to see that the standards are met. Two types of standards are applied. Technology-based standards set minimum control requirements for all discharges (e.g. secondary treatment for municipal dischargers). Where technology-based standards do not lead to conditions supporting a designated beneficial uses (e.g. support of a fishery), water quality standards are applied. Here, the intended use for the receiving water is identified and the physical, chemical and biological conditions required to support that use (e.g. oxygen levels for fish populations) are specified. The National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) was established to oversee a permitting program. Permits are issued by state agencies and written to limit pollutant discharges to levels allowing standards to be met. Penalties for violation of the permit include fines up to $50,000 per day of violation and the possibility of imprisonment. Control of these 'point source' discharges led to dramatic improvements in water quality, but considerable pollution remained. More than 30 years after passage of the Act, over 40% of the nation's waters do not meet water quality standards. In such cases, where point sources have implemented required levels of pollution control technology and the waters remain impaired, states are required to establish a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) for that waterbody. A TMDL specifies the maximum amount of a pollutant that a waterbody can receive and still meet water quality standards, and allocates pollutant loadings among point and nonpoint pollutant sources.

The role of the engineer is critical in water quality management. It is the engineer's capabilities in quantitative analysis that provides the critical linkage between a permitted level of discharge and the desired water quality condition. Here, we will explore the impacts that wastes have on lakes and streams, mathematical models which quantify the system response to management action and several engineered approaches for cleaning up polluted waters and protecting then for the future.