Effluent Limitations Guidelines, Pretreatment Standards, and New Source Performance Standards for the Iron and Steel Manufacturing Point Source Category

This final rule represents the culmination of the Agency's effort to revise Clean Water Act (CWA) effluent limitations guidelines and standards for wastewater discharges from the iron and steel manufacturing industry. The final regulation revises technology-based effluent limitations guidelines and standards for certain wastewater discharges associated with metallurgical cokemaking, sintering, and ironmaking operations; and codifies new effluent limitations guidelines and standards for direct reduced ironmaking, briquetting, and forging. EPA is also revising the regulations for the steelmaking subcategory, to provide an allowance for existing basic oxygen furnaces operating semi-wet air pollution control systems; and to establish technology- based effluent limitations guidelines and standards for electric arc furnaces operating semi-wet pollution control systems. EPA is eliminating rule references to the following obsolete operations: beehive cokemaking in the cokemaking subcategory, ferromanganese blast furnaces in the ironmaking subcategory, and open hearth furnace operations in the steelmaking subcategory. EPA is not revising effluent limitations guidelines and standards for the remaining subcategories within this industrial category: vacuum degassing, continuous casting, hot forming, salt bath descaling, acid pickling, cold forming, alkaline cleaning and hot coating. Nor is EPA codifying a new subcategorization scheme and associated definitions to support the new subcategorization for this industrial category. EPA expects compliance with this regulation to reduce the discharge of conventional pollutants by at least 351,000 pounds per year and toxic and non-conventional pollutants by at least 1,018,000 pounds per year. EPA estimates the annual cost of the rule will be $12.0 million (pre-tax $2001). EPA estimates that the annual benefits of the rule will range from $1.4 million to $7.3 million ($2001).