The Stage 2 rules for disinfection byproducts are expected to prevent approximately 280 bladder cancer cases per year in the United States, 26 percent of which would have been fatal. The annual cost savings of fewer cancer cases is estimated between $763 million and $1.5 billion. DBPs also are suspected of causing reproductive problems, including problems during pregnancy. Thus, the Stage 2 DBP rules aim to mitigate unnecessary costs to human health.
But saving lives and money comes with its own price tag. About four percent of water treatment plants had to make treatment changes to comply with the Stage 2 DBP rules—at an annual cost of $79 million. And the remainder of plants, about 75,000 in all, had to change their monitoring for DBPs to remain in compliance.
Keeping up with new state and federal water treatment regulations can be difficult, but Innova can help your plant get into compliance and keep up with the latest rules.
What and Why
The Stage 2 rules apply specifically to two kinds of DBPs: haloacetic acids—aka HAA5—and trihalomethanes—aka TTHM. These two byproducts cause cancer and have effects on reproductive systems in lab animals, and those same effects are suspected in humans.
According to the Environmental Protection Agency, the Stage 2 DBP rules strengthen “public health by tightening compliance monitoring requirements” for TTHM and HAA5.
What Stage 2 DBP Monitoring Entails
The rules require water treatment plants to do an evaluation of their distribution systems, find locations with high DBP concentrations, and use those as sampling sites for Stage 2 compliance monitoring. The EPA’s previous rules determined compliance with a calculation of the running annual average of samples from all the monitoring locations in the system. Each plant must determine if it has exceeded its operational evaluation level, and if it has, the plant must review its practices and then report to the state the actions it will take to mitigate high DBP levels.
The EPA’s Stage 2 DBP rules are meant to protect public health, and they change the way water treatment plants monitor their DBP levels.
How Innova Can Help
You’ve changed your DBP monitoring procedures. You’re doing all that you can to comply with the Stage 2 DBP rules. But your plant has exceeded its operational evaluation level. What now?
Your first move should be to call Innova. We’ll investigate your problem and look into your total organic compounds. Then our expert team will customize a treatment plan to reduce your TOC, and therefore your chlorine-related disinfectants, so you’ll end up with significant reductions in dangerous DBPs.
We offer a revolutionary products that are highly soluble, low pH algicide/bactericides created for use in ponds, reservoirs, lakes, irrigation canals, treatment lagoons, sedimentation basins, and other water systems. It will get your plant into compliance.
If you’re having trouble keeping your plant in compliance with Stage 2 DBP rules, your best bet is to partner with Innova. We’ll help you get into compliance so you don’t have to worry about exceeding your operational evaluation levels ever again.
