EPA to Expand Regulation of Industries

The Environmental Protection Agency, settling a lawsuit brought against it, will move over the next several years to apply its rules to thousands of previously unregulated industrial plants, agency officials announced Saturday.

Tudor Davies, director of the Office of Science and Technology in the EPA’s water division, said the change eventually will lead to “a significant reduction of toxic substances being released into the environment.”

In settling the lawsuit, the EPA agreed to extend federal standards to 16 categories of industry. When they become final, the new federal regulations will replace state controls said to be less stringent and uniform.

The Clean Water Act of 1972 directed the EPA to impose the toughest achievable standards on about 50 industries. But only 24 of the categories have been covered by the federal standards so far.

Congress amended the act in 1987, directing the agency to identify unregulated sources of pollution and to begin policing them.

The National Resources Defense Council, complaining of the slowness of EPA action, sued the agency, demanding that it comply with the law.

In the negotiated settlement, the EPA agreed to complete regulating of seven new sectors by July, 1996, and to complete controls for four new industries by 2002.

“The practical effect is that we will now coordinate studies on a number of industries,” Davies said, adding that the process will take until the turn of the century to complete.

Among the first industries to be surveyed will be waste treatment, industrial laundries, machinery manufacturing and rebuilding and transportation equipment and cleaning, he said.

“The aim is to bring industries to a level of treatment that is achievable economically to meet water standards,” Davies said.