On March 12, 2025, the EPA made two announcements:
Background
The Clean Water Act (CWA) requires the EPA to revise industry-wide wastewater treatment limits, called effluent limitations guidelines (ELGs), to keep pace with innovations in pollution control technology.
“[ELGs] are national industry-specific wastewater regulations based on the performance of demonstrated wastewater treatment technologies (often called ‘technology-based limits’),” according to an EPA press release on revisions applicable to the oil and gas extraction industry. “They are intended to represent the greatest pollutant reductions that are economically achievable for an entire industry.”
Wastewater discharge for oil and gas extraction revisions
Current regulations only allow the discharge of treated wastewater for agricultural and wildlife water uses in the western United States.
Plans for the regulations’ revision include:
- Expanding the geographic scope where treated wastewater can be used and discharged in the United States; and
- Evaluating modern technologies and management strategies to provide regulatory flexibility for oil and gas wastewater, also known as “produced water,” to be treated for beneficial reuse.
Concerns include potential negative environmental impacts from expanding areas available for wastewater discharge.
Reuse possibilities being considered are:
- Artificial intelligence cooling
- Data center cooling
- Rangeland irrigation
- Fire control
- Power generation
- Ecological needs
- Extraction of lithium and other minerals
The EPA stated the revision will prioritize cost savings and that “[t]echnologies to treat produced water to a quality for safe discharge and reuse have become more effective and affordable.”
“EPA will revise wastewater regulations from the 1970s that do not reflect modern capability to treat and reuse water for good,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in the Agency’s release. “As a result, we will lower production costs for oil and gas extraction to boost American energy while increasing water supplies and protecting water quality.”
Wastewater regulation revisions for coal-burning power plants
Steam electric plants use fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas) or nuclear reactions to heat water in boilers, which generates steam used to drive turbines connected to electric generators. These plants generate wastewater in the form of chemical pollutants and thermal pollution from their water treatment, power cycle, ash handling, and air pollution control systems, as well as from coal piles, yard and floor drainage, and other miscellaneous wastes.
The 2024 ELGs for the steam electric power generating industry established stringent discharge standards for four wastewaters generated at these facilities:
- Flue gas desulfurization wastewater
- Bottom ash transport water
- Combustion residual leachate
- Legacy wastewater
“EPA will reconsider these standards, including technology-based ELGs it promulgated for leachate under the 2024 Supplemental Steam Electric ELGs, which are projected to cost the industry hundreds of millions of dollars that could be passed on to consumers,” states the Agency’s release on the steam electric ELGs. “As part of this effort, the agency will consider how it might provide immediate relief from some of the existing leachate requirements. In a series of related actions, the agency will also provide clarifying updates to other leachate requirements from the same rule to prevent unintended misapplication of the existing rule. Additionally, the agency will reevaluate existing information on the availability and cost of membrane technology.
“The 2024 rule is currently being challenged in the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals. EPA has received two petitions for reconsideration from the Edison Electric Institute and Utility Water Act Group, trade associations representing electric utilities.”