Effluent Guidelines

February 2, 2023

USEPA recently issued Effluent Guidelines Program Plan 15, which includes a focus on PFAS discharges from multiple categories.  In conjunction with Plan 15, EPA has determined that revisions to the effluent guidelines and standards for the Landfills Category (40 CFR part 445) are warranted.  See Section 6.3.3 of the Plan.  Here are a few excerpts regarding landfill leachate:

• EPA evaluated discharge data from over 200 landfills from across the country and found PFAS present in the leachate at over 95 percent of the landfills. PFAS detections included 63 different PFAS with average concentrations for an individual compound as high as 14,000 parts-per-trillion (ppt) (ERG, 2022c).
• Based on information and data collected through the Landfill Leachate Detailed Study, the development of effluent guidelines and pretreatment standards for landfills that discharge their leachate is warranted. Therefore, EPA intends to revise the existing Landfills Point Source Category (40 CFR part 445) ELG to address PFAS discharge from these landfills pending resource availability. Once EPA develops the schedule for this rulemaking, it will be published in EPA’s Regulatory Agenda.

Additional details on the USEPA Effluent Guidelines Program Plan are available at https://www.epa.gov/eg/landfills-effluent-guidelines

Landfill leachate and wastewater treatment planning and resource information are available here.