The Environmental Protection Agency has exempted most U.S. oil and gas producers from new regulations governing storm water discharges.
EPA's final rule allows oil and gas operators to obtain a storm water runoff permit for well sites unless they have had a release of oil or hazardous substances into storm water within the past 3 years.
Separately, EPA proposed to toughen its water pollution control rules for offshore drilling and production operations. It will accept comments before proposing a detailed rule by Mar. 1, 1991.
STORM WATER RUNOFF
The Clean Water Act requires EPA to develop rules limiting pollution in storm water discharges associated with industrial activity. Those rules, published in the Nov. 16 Federal Register, are effective Dec. 17.
The Independent Petroleum Association of America, which had worked with EPA to moderate the rules, claimed a victory.
IPAA said EPA had proposed regulating storm water runoff from oil and gas sites in the 1980s, but IPAA won an exemption for exploration and production operations in the 1987 Clean Water Act Amendments. EPA reproposed regulation last year.
EPA acknowledged only that the 1987 amendments exempted major oil and gas facilities, such as refineries, because they channel storm water around plants to prevent pollution from contaminants.
The final rule said EPA decided it would be too large a burden for the agency and for the industry for it to require storm water permits for all 750,000 oil wells in the U.S.
So it decided to require permits only for sites that have had a release of a reportable volume of oil or hazardous substances in the past 3 years.
EPA defined a reportable volume as at least the amount of oil that causes a film or sheen on water or discolors the water.
EPA said using the sheen test to determine if storm water discharges are contaminated will be a far easier test for operators to determine whether to file a storm water permit application than a test based on sampling.
TECHNOLOGY REQUIREMENTS
EPA is developing rules under the Clean Water Act to establish offshore effluent limitation guidelines based on the best available technology economically achievable and best conventional pollution control technology.
In 1979 EPA issued effluent limitations guidelines based on the best practicable control technology available.
The new rules will apply to drilling fluids, drill cuttings, produced water, deck drainage, produced sand, well treatment and workover fluids, and domestic and sanitary wastes.
In a Nov. 25 Federal Register notice, EPA outlined a series of options for tighter regulation of offshore discharges.
It said if a platform is within 4 miles of shore, it prefers zero discharge of drilling fluids and drill cuttings and filtration of produced waters. Easier standards would apply to platforms and rigs more than 4 miles from shore.
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