Talk:Effluent

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This article is or was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): LraFls.

Above undated message substituted from Template:Dashboard.wikiedu.org assignment by PrimeBOT (talk) 20:33, 17 January 2022 (UTC)[reply]

loose definition of "effluent" are possibly a disaster to individuals in the sense of "being in a city", which is the most important sense, since everyone is in some city we can say

for example: "the individual disposal facility code, division of environmental health, fairfax county VA department of health", (noting this is scott's law regulation which they state is law) https://www.fairfaxcounty.gov/health/sites/health/files/assets/documents/pdf/sewage-disposal-facilities-code.pdf,

Chapter 613, Regulations for Alternative Onsite Sewage Systems Part I, General 12VAC5-613-10. Definitions

"Effluent" means sewage that has undergone treatment.

(what this means is wikipedia's sense of "federal agencies" defining or dictionary defining may be terribly wrong depending upon one's MUNICIPAL CODE, their city) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8806:400:1CF0:25D1:A7A6:F626:E1B1 (talk) 00:52, 14 May 2018 (UTC)[reply]

This article was the subject of a Wiki Education Foundation-supported course assignment, between 10 August 2022 and 8 December 2022. Further details are available on the course page. Student editor(s): Horseshoecrab3 (article contribs).

— Assignment last updated by Horseshoecrab3 (talk) 18:35, 28 September 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Here is a bibliography including potential sources I am considering using to update this page on effluent. US EPA, OW (2014-02-07). "Effluent Guidelines". This is the United States Environmental Protection Agency website regarding national regulatory standards of effluent. "What is Effluent?" Water and Waste Digest. This is an article about understanding effluent, wastewater treatment, and EPA guidelines from the magazine Water and Waste Digest. Jegatheesan, V.; She, L.; Visvanathan, C. (2011). "Aquaculture Effluent: Impacts and Remedies for Protecting the Environment and Human Health". Encyclopedia of Environmental Health. This is an overview of the impacts of effluent from aquaculture and technology that can be used to treat it from the Encyclopedia of Environmental Health. Sivaram, N.M.; Gopal, P.M.; Barik, Debarbrata (2019). "Toxic Waste From Textile Industries". Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation. This is a chapter about the sustainable practice of using toxic waste from textile plants to generate electricity from the book Energy from Toxic Organic Waste for Heat and Power Generation. Brandt, Malcolm J.; Johnson, K. Michael; Elphinston, Andrew J.; Ratnayaka, Don D. (2017). "Specialized and Advanced Water Treatment Processes". Twort's Water Supply. This is a chapter about specialized water treatment processes to remove or neutralize a variety of contaminants from the book Twort's Water Supply. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Horseshoecrab3 (talk • contribs) 10:36, 11 October 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I will be making changes to this article as can be found in User:Horseshoecrab3/Effluent. If anyone has suggestions, please let me know! Horseshoecrab3 (talk) 03:14, 30 November 2022 (UTC)Horseshoecrab3[reply]

The proposed text may cause confusion between effluent and wastewater. I question if the Treatment section is appropriate in this article specifying release to surface waters in the definitions stated in the earlier Definition section. This material might be more appropriately covered with a link to the wastewater treatment article. I suggest substitution of wastewater for indirect effluent in the first sentence, and for effluent in the second sentence of the Pollution control regulation section. Thewellman (talk) 20:51, 30 November 2022 (UTC)[reply]

Thanks for your feedback. From what I understand, effluent is released to surface waters either directly or indirectly after undergoing wastewater treatment. I added a link to the wastewater treatment article in the lead section.Horseshoecrab3 (talk) 06:49, 3 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

I wish to thank User:Moreau1 for improving this article, especially with regard to international perspective, but I'm concerned the last paragraph of the United States subsection may be misleading. Although emphasis on mass-based effluent limits may be accurate for industrial wastewater, 40CFR133 relies heavily upon concentration-based effluent limits for conventional sewage treatment at publicly owned treatment works, which remain a significant source of effluent in the United States. Thewellman (talk) 07:21, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

You're welcome! You are correct. Mass-based limits are generally used in industrial discharger permits, but the NPDES regs do not absolutely prohibit a permit writer from include such limits in a POTW permit. I don't think that there are many such limits in POTW permits, however.

We are now really drilling down into the weeds, as it were, regarding how NPDES permit limits are set for different types of dischargers. I'm not sure how much detail on this topic is really appropriate for this particular "Effluent" article. Maybe the explanation should be in another article? We still don't have a separate article describing the NPDES system; right now NPDES is described, in a basic fashion, in only the CWA article. I think a separate NPDES article would be a good place to explain how permit limits are set. Another option would be to expand the article at United States regulation of point source water pollution.

But anyway... Part 133 is the Secondary Treatment Regulation, which sets out the basic limitations applicable to POTWs. If we decide to get more detailed in this Effluent article, then we would certainly need to add this reference and explain it.

The full CFR reference that I wanted to cite for the mass-based limitations is 40 CFR 122.45(f), but unfortunately the wiki CFR template is not working properly and does not display the subsections.

As explained in the NPDES Permit Writer's Manual, "...§ 122.45(f)(1) requires that all permit limitations, standards, or prohibitions be expressed in terms of mass except in any of the following cases:

- For pH, temperature, radiation or other pollutants that cannot appropriately be expressed by mass limitations

- When applicable standards and limitations are expressed in terms of other units of measure...

"... mass-based discharge limitations are not specifically required to implement secondary treatment standards." (EPA NPDES Permit Writer's Manual, Chapter 5. https://www.epa.gov/npdes/npdes-permit-writers-manual)

Moreau1 (talk) 15:35, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]

While the percent removal provisions of 40CFR133 theoretically impose mass-based limitations on POTW effluent, those regulations contain numerous exceptions frequently exploited to circumvent implementation. I agree that level of detail is inappropriate in this article; and I think we are in agreement about the desirability of redirecting explanation of Pretreatment and Pollution control regulation to other articles, as I suggested in the previous section. Expansion of the effluent guidelines article might be a good start, although I concur with your suggestion for an NPDES article. Thewellman (talk) 18:54, 4 December 2022 (UTC)[reply]