EPA Will Force Curbs on Water Pollution : Environment: 22 states and territories, including California, can avoid federal controls by approving their own standards within 90 days.

The Environmental Protection Agency on Wednesday put 22 states or territories--including California--on notice that it will impose federal controls on discharges of toxic pollutants into their lakes and waterways unless they adopt standards of their own within 90 days.

In an action termed the largest and most comprehensive step that the agency ever has undertaken to protect surface water, EPA plans to put federal limits on the discharge of 105 different toxic pollutants--with more to join the list when scientific data is available.

“It is a tough standard,” said EPA Administrator William K. Reilly. “A state might find it an onerous or excessive standard under some circumstances, but the solution for a state that finds itself in that position is for it to move aggressively and energetically to implement its own standard.”

Under 1987 amendments to the Clean Water Act, Congress gave states three years to set standards limiting toxic discharges. But by February, 1990, only six states had complied, and EPA announced that it would use its authority to impose federal standards. For a year, the agency has been under threat of a lawsuit by the Natural Resources Defense Council for failure to move ahead.

“Twenty-nine states have acted,” Reilly said. “Those that have not are being served notice that they must . . . . We are talking about toxics that accumulate in fish tissue and are then eaten by pregnant women and have all sorts of harmful effects on health and on the environment. It’s a serious problem.”

State reports compiled by EPA show harmful levels of toxics in 28,000 miles of the nation’s rivers, in 3.6 million acres of lakes, 2,000 square miles of estuaries and 4,800 miles of Great Lakes shoreline. Although industrial discharges of toxics have been reduced by about 28% since 1988, Reilly said, 189 million pounds of toxic industrial chemicals are still released each year. For 61 toxins demonstrated to have cancer-causing properties, the EPA standard will be set at a level estimated to cause no more than one additional case per million among people subjected to lifetime exposure.

James M. Strock, California’s secretary for environmental protection, said the state has received EPA approval for standards controlling the 68 pollutants “deemed to be the most serious threats to aquatic life and human health.” The State Water Quality Control Board, he said, is expected to complete standards on the remaining 37 by next April.

“The U.S. EPA,” he said, “has adopted national criteria guidelines for these pollutants, but these criteria do not address the specific hydrologic conditions of each state. Rather than adopt the national criteria in toto, the state board chose to analyze each recommended criterion and adopt the best limits to meet California’s unique conditions.”

In spite of the EPA’s stern rhetoric, it was unclear how aggressively enforcement of the tough federal standard will be pursued.

Although the agency hopes to complete work on the new regulations and put them into effect in about 90 days, it will take five years for them to reach all polluters. Routinely, the standard will be put into force only when industries apply to renew any of the thousands of water quality permits. In urgent cases, the EPA can intervene and make the new toxic standard part of an existing permit.

Possible sanctions against violators include heavy fines, government-ordered abatement and suspension of operations.

But, when states respond to the EPA nudging by completing their own standards, they may be able to get the federal agency’s approval for restrictions far less stringent than those announced Wednesday.

Depending on the circumstances, the one-in-a-million cancer standard announced by Reilly might be changed to one in 100,000.

Officials warned, however, that EPA will not accept state standards that routinely minimize conditions and exposure risks.

Of the 22 states and territories that have not complied with the congressional mandate, Reilly said only two--Colorado and New Hampshire--are expected to complete work on their own standards by the time the federal regulation goes into force.

The others expected to be subject to the EPA’s new regulations are Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, Connecticut, the District of Columbia, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Louisiana, Michigan, New Jersey, Nevada, the Northern Mariana Islands, Puerto Rico, Rhode Island, Vermont, Virginia and Washington.

Environmentalists welcomed the announcement.

“These rules,” resources defense council senior attorney Jessica Landman said, “are key weapons in the fight to get toxic pollutants out of our waters, and it is about time EPA took action. The states covered by this proposal are nearly two years late in living up to Congress’s mandate. EPA is doing its job by acting where these states have failed.”

Although the agency is nearly two years behind schedule in setting standards for noncompliant states, Reilly said, it has made substantial progress in getting voluntary reductions by industries producing toxic effluent.