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

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is taking direct final action to amend certain provisions of the effluent guidelines for the Pharmaceutical Manufacturing Point Source Category, which were published on September 21, 1998 (63 FR 50424). First, EPA is clarifying the date on which a discharger subject to the New Source Performance Standards (NSPS) and the Pretreatment Standards for New Sources (PSNS) would be subject to effluent limitations and pretreatment standards established in the 1998 regulation. Second, this rule re-establishes a minimum concentration for the maximum monthly average BOD<INF>5</INF> limitation that EPA inadvertently omitted from the Best Practicable Control Technology (BPT) requirements in two subcategories of the 1998 regulation. Next, the amendments correct an error in EPA's pass-through analysis prepared in support of the 1998 rule and, as a result, deletes methyl Cellosolve (2-methoxyethanol) from the pretreatment standards in two subcategories and from Appendix A, Table 2, "Surrogate Parameters for Indirect Dischargers." Finally, the Agency is making other non- substantive editorial and format changes such as removing redundancies, and adding definitions.