Wastewater Discharge - It's Not Good For Lakes (Part 2)

TCEQ Wastewater Quality Limits Are Too Lax

Even if a wastewater treatment plant were to continuously meet the TCEQ permit requirements (by no means certain, considering TCEQ's monitoring standards and lack of enforcement), the standards established by TCEQ for effluent dishcarges are simply too lax to protect our streams and lakes. Below is a somewhat technical discussion of the TCEQ permit requirements.

Credit: The information below is taken from "General Threats To Water Quality From Domestic Wastewater Discharges In The Hill Country", pages 19-23, by Raymond Slade, Certified Professional Hydrologist (see Vita).

CBOD and TSS: "..Most of the Total Suspended Solids in wastewater is expected to be organic material rather than suspended sediment thus wastewater likely would cause an increase in suspended organic material in receiving streams and reservoirs—such increases likely would degrade water quality in receiving waters." RS

Ammonia nitrogen - Threat to public water supply: "..a limit of 1 mg/l for nitrite nitrogen and 10 mg/l for nitrate nitrogen are imposed for public water systems. With addition of oxygen, the ammonia nitrogen in wastewater (2-3 mg/L) would change to states of nitrite and nitrate nitrogen as the wastewater was conveyed. Nitrite Nitrogen levels of 2-3 mg/L (converted from ammonia nitrogen) would exceed the limits from these regulations. " RS

Ammonia nitrogen - Threat to stream: "Many studies have linked nitrogen in water to algal problems in streams...Eutrophic conditions can readily be caused in streams and reservoirs by wastewater nitrogen—such conditions often cause reduction or depletion of biological species in such waters." RS

Phosphorus - Threat to stream: "A study conducted by the Texas Institute for Applied Environmental Research shows that phosphorus levels as low as 0.05 mg/l have produced as much as one-half of the average algal biomass in the streams studies (Kiesling and others, 2001, p. 34, fig. 12, http://tiaer.tarleton.edu/pdf/TR0107.pdf)
and shows that phosphorus concentrations as low as 0.20 mg/l cause full maximum algae production in streams. (same reference as above, p. 37)." RS

Ammonia nitrogen and phosphorus - Threat to stream: "Under section 303c of the Clean Water Act, the EPA recommends that States establish water-quality criteria, and provides background material and recommendations for limits of nutrients (nitrogen and phosphorus). Such information and data are presented for Region IV, which includes Texas: (see report HERE).
Water-quality data for streams in Subecoregion 30 within Region IV, which represents the Hill Country area, were used to present “Reference conditions” for nutrients in the subecoregion. Based on data for about 41 streams, 0.27 mg/l represents the 25 percentile for total nitrogen in streams in the subecoregion, and, based on about 50 streams, 0.008 mg/l represents the 25 percentile for total phosphorus (same reference as above, p. 19).
These values are substantially lower than those for wastewater permits.
U.S Environmental Protection Agency recommendations for nutrient criteria for Region IV are 0.56 mg/l for total nitrogen and 0.023 mg/l for total phosphorus (see report HERE)." RS