[Federal Register Volume 66, Number 71 (Thursday, April 12, 2001)]
[Notices]
[Pages 18935-18936]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 01-9056]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

[FRL-6965-6]


Notice of Availability of 2001 Update: Aquatic Life Criteria 
Document for Cadmium

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Notice of Availability of 2001 Update: Aquatic Life Criteria 
Document for Cadmium.

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SUMMARY: Section 304(a)(1) of the Clean Water Act requires the 
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop and publish, and from 
time to time revise, criteria for water accurately reflecting the 
latest scientific knowledge. EPA has revised its aquatic life criteria 
for cadmium and is notifying the public about the availability of the 
completed document in accordance with the Agency's new process for 
developing or revising criteria (63 FR 68354, December 10, 1998).
    EPA notified the public about the availability of the draft 
document and the peer review on August 17, 2000 (65 FR 50201). At that 
time, the Agency solicited views from the public on issues of science 
pertaining to the information used in deriving the draft criteria EPA 
considered the comments from the peer reviewers and the public and has 
revised the document accordingly. The completed document is now 
available.

ADDRESSES: Copies of the completed criteria document entitled, 2001 
Update of Ambient Water Quality Criteria for Cadmium, may be obtained 
from EPA's National Services Center for Environmental Publications 
(NSCEP formally NCEPI) by phone at 800-490-9198, or by e-mail to 
[email protected] or by conventional mail to U.S. EPA/NSCEP, P.O. Box 
42419, Cincinnati, Ohio, USA, 45242-2419. Alternatively, the document 
and related fact sheet can be obtained from EPA's web site at http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/criteria/ on the Internet.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Cindy Roberts, Health and Ecological 
Criteria Division (4304), US EPA, Ariel Rios Building, 1200 
Pennsylvania Avenue NW., Washington, DC 20460; (202) 260-2787; 
[email protected]

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION:

What Are Water Quality Criteria?

    Section 304(a)(1) of the Clean Water Act requires the EPA to 
develop and publish, and from time to time revise, criteria for water 
accurately reflecting the latest scientific knowledge. Water quality 
criteria developed under section 304(a) are based solely on data and 
scientific judgments. They do not consider economic impacts or the 
technological feasibility of meeting the criteria in ambient water.
    Under the CWA, States and Tribes are to establish water quality 
criteria to protect designated uses. EPA has promulgated regulations to 
implement this requirement (see 40 CFR part 141). EPA's recommended 
water quality criteria do not substitute for the Act or regulations, 
nor is it a regulation itself. Thus, EPA's recommended water quality 
criteria cannot impose legally binding requirements on EPA, States, 
Tribes or any other regulated community, and may not apply to a 
particular situation based on the circumstances. State and Tribal 
decisionmakers retain the discretion to adopt approaches on a case-by-
case basis that differ from this guidance when appropriate. EPA may 
change this guidance in the future.
    EPA emphasizes that, in the course of carrying out its 
responsibilities under section 303(c), it reviews State and Tribal 
water quality standards to assess the need for new or revised water 
quality criteria. EPA generally believes that five years from the date 
of EPA's publication of new or revised water quality criteria is a 
reasonable time by which States and authorized Tribes should take 
action to adopt new or revised water quality criteria necessary to 
protect the designated uses of their waters. This period is intended to 
accommodate those State and authorized Tribes that have begun a 
triennial review and wish to complete the action they have underway, 
deferring initiating adoption of new or revised section 304(a) criteria 
until the next triennial review. Thus, EPA expects State and authorized 
Tribes to adopt criteria for cadmium that ensure the protection of 
designated uses no later than 2006.

How Did EPA Involve the Public in Revising the Aquatic Life 
Criteria for Cadmium?

    In following the Agency's new process for developing criteria, EPA 
notified the public of its intentions to revise the aquatic life 
criteria for cadmium in the Federal Register on October 29, 1999 (64 FR 
58409). At that time, EPA made available to the public all references 
identified by a recent literature review and solicited any additional 
pertinent data or scientific views that would be useful in revising the 
aquatic life criteria. EPA revised the aquatic life criteria for 
cadmium based on the new data and prepared a draft document. EPA then 
announced the peer review and the availability of the peer review draft 
on August 17, 2000 (65 FR 50201). Again, EPA solicited views from the 
public on issues of science pertaining to the information used in 
deriving the draft criteria. EPA considered the comments from the peer 
reviewers and the public and has revised the document accordingly.

Where Can I Find More Information on EPA's Revised Process for 
Developing New or Revised Criteria?

    The Agency published detailed information about its revised process 
for developing and revising criteria in the Federal Register on 
December 10, 1998 (63 FR 68354) and in the EPA document entitled, 
National Recommended Water Quality--Correction (EPA 822-Z-99-001, April 
1999). The purpose of the revised process is to provide expanded 
opportunities for public input, and to make the criteria development 
process more efficient.

Is the Completed Document Different Than the Draft Document?

    In addressing the peer reviewers' comments and the scientific 
issues raised by the public, revisions were made to the draft document. 
These

[[Page 18936]]

revisions resulted in no changes in the saltwater criterion maximum 
concentration (CMC or ``acute criterion'') or the saltwater criterion 
continuous concentration (CCC or ``chronic criterion''), but did result 
in significant changes in the freshwater CMC and CCC.
    The freshwater CMC changed due to several factors including the 
addition of data for bull trout and rainbow trout, the elimination of 
some data and the recalculation of species mean acute values (SMAVs) 
for a few species. Two SMAVs were recalculated based on all applicable 
data rather than only giving preference to flow-through measured test 
results, as in the draft.
    EPA's freshwater metals criteria are expressed as hardness 
dependent values because water quality characteristics such as hardness 
(and other parameters that covary with hardness) influence the toxicity 
of metals on aquatic organisms. Therefore, hardness slopes were 
established to normalize all freshwater acute and chronic values to the 
same hardness in order to derive the criteria. These hardness slopes 
were revised in the completed document. The revision to the acute slope 
was minor, but the chronic slope revision was more significant and 
resulted in a less stringent CCC compared to the draft document. The 
revised CCC, however, is still more stringent than EPA's 1995 CCC.
    A number of comments were received stating that EPA should not 
proceed with the cadmium update until the biotic ligand model (BLM), a 
model that estimates the bioavailable portion of dissolved metals in 
the water column based on site-specific water quality parameters such 
as alkalinity, pH and dissolved organic carbon, is available for 
cadmium. To date, EPA has not completed any BLM criteria and is still 
in the preliminary evaluation phase of the model for cadmium and so 
does not agree that the update should wait for the development of the 
BLM. The cadmium criteria may be revised in the future based on the 
BLM, yet development is contingent upon resources and sufficient data 
being available to develop the model.

What Are the New Criteria?

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                                                      Fresh water \1\                         Salt water
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                                                                                      CMC  (g/L)     CCC  (g/L)      m>g/L)        m>g/L)
 
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Total...............................  e(1.0166[ln(hardness)]- e(.7409[ln(hardness)]-         40.28         8.846
                                       3.924).                 4.719).
Dissolved...........................  1.0...................  0.15..................         40            8.8
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1-@ 50 mg/L hardness measured as CaCO3
CMC conversion factor = 1.136672 - [(ln hardness)(0.041838)]
CCC conversion factor = 1.101672 - [(ln hardness)(0.041838)]

    Dated: April 4, 2001.
Geoffrey H. Grubbs,
Director, Office of Science and Technology.
[FR Doc. 01-9056 Filed 4-11-01; 8:45 am]
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