• Journal of Environmental Impact Assessment
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• v.22 no.3
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• pp.203-217
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• 2013

This study looked at how to establish effluent limitation standards for formaldehyde, a toxic chemical widely used in industries. To this end, we reviewed Water Quality Based Effluent Limitation (WQBEL), Technology Based Effluent Limitation (TBEL), and water quality criteria for protection of human health and aquatic organism. Based on the results, we estimated formaldehyde effluent limitation standards appropriate to control water quality of industrial wastewater in Korea. However, this study has limits due to the lack of some data necessary in estimating formaldehyde effluent limitation. For example, although water quality criteria based on non-carcinogenic properties of formaldehyde were calculated, those based on carcinogenic properties were not be able to estimate because of the absence of applicable cancer potency factor q1. Without applicable factor, we calculated water quality standards for formaldehyde based on water quality criteria of advanced countries including the United States, while with no water quality standard we referred to applicable drinking water quality standards of other countries. For eco-toxicity based on water quality criteria, proper figures could not be calculated since there have been few reliable data.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.6
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• pp.804-812
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• 2012

This study contemplated domestic and other country's effluent limitation standards and suggested a methodology to establish technology-base limitation value. Current effluent limitation regulates industrial point sources discriminated by discharge flow rate and by regional distinction in Korea. Discharged $BOD_5$ load from large-scale plants(flow rate above $2,000\;m^3/day)$ exceeds 50% of overall industrial wastewater, which present rationale for discrimination based on plant size. However, regional distinction and pollutant- specific regulation might be insufficient to meet practical effectiveness of wastewater management policy, due to the nearly same limitation. Water quality data and treatment methods were investigated in hospital industry. And their distribution of effluent $BOD_5$ concentrations was statistically analyzed to suggest limitation value. Effluent $BOD_5$ concentrations showed lognormal distribution and $95^{th}$ percentile was corresponded to 87.9 mg/L, which could be suggested as tentative effluent limitation in hospital industry. The $95^{th}$ percentile of log-transformed distribution showed similar value of 86.5 mg/L. This study demonstrated reasonable methodology for establishing effluent limitation reflecting wastewater characteristic and treatment technology in separately categorized industry.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.28 no.4
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• pp.608-614
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• 2012

The effluent limitation of industrial wastewater is based on uniform regulatory criteria for effluent discharge facilities of all in Korea. But, an individual effluent limitation on each effluent discharge facility is widely applicable for regulation of industrial wastewater in US.EPA. To decide an individual effluent limitation, TBEL (Technology-based effluent limitation) and WQBEL (Water quality-based effluent limitation) are used. TBEL is based on the capability of a treatment technology to reduce the pollutants. WQBEL is based on ambient water quality standards. In this study, TBEL were derived for the pulp, paper and paper board manufacturing based on best practicable control technology currently available. It was suggested that effluent limitations were $BOD_5$ 4.7 mg/L, $COD_{Mn}$ 44.3 mg/L, SS 13.2 mg/L, TN 1.4 mg/L, TP 0.15 mg/L and best practicable control technology currently available (BPT) was neutralization, activated sludge treatment and coagulation and sedimentation for the pulp, paper and paper board manufacturing.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.30 no.5
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• pp.524-531
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• 2014

Korea has been trying to manage water quality of rivers and lakes in many ways. Ministry of Environment is making continuous efforts of operation control improvement such as strengthening effluent standards in sewage treatment plants and expanding Tele-Monitoring System (TMS). However, evaluation method for operations of sewage treatment plants and establishment system of effluent standards are inadequate. The objective of this study is to evaluate for operations of sewage treatment plants using statistics technique such as frequency analysis, percentile, normal distribution analysis. We used the effluent data (BOD, COD, SS) collected at 299 plants in 2012. The values were very low by comparison with standards. The Data followed a normal distribution. We think that distribution characteristics are closely related with effluent standards, especially T-P and BOD. Statistics technique attempted in this study can be used to evaluate for operations of sewage treatment plants and assess the appropriateness of effluent standards based on TBEL(Technology-based effluent limitation). And, this technique can be used to figure out the overall level of plants, the status of each plant and the favorable treatment process for each item (BOD, COD etc.). Data acquired through this method can be used to improve facilities and operation techniques and decide on a sewerage policy.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.3
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• pp.377-386
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• 2010

Introduction of TBELs into Korean environmental regulatory system for wastewater may require very careful considerations and appropriate modifications of the TBELs applied in US. The Korean regulations for wastewater are based on uniform regulatory criteria for wastewater effluent discharge and are quite different from the individual permit system in US. In addition, the toxic pollutants regulated in Korea are much less than those in US. Therefore, the effects of TBELs application on the pollutants reduction and the economic feasibility should be carefully assessed for different categories of wastewater sources. In this study, the applicability of TBELs for the industrial categories of Korea was discussed. The TBELs were derived for a sample category, the pulp paper paperboard manufacture, based on the previously reported analytical data from 52 facilities of the domestic pulp paper paperboard manufacture in Korea. It was suggested that the BAT effluent limitations were BOD 30 mg/L, $COD_{Mn}$ 40 mg/L, SS 40 mg/L, T-N 30 mg/L and T-P 4 mg/L and that the allowable effluent loads were $0.31{\sim}1.75kgCOD_{Mn}/ton$-products. Due to the limitation of insufficient data, there were difficult to obtain the important factors to derive more systematic and accurate limitation standards for the pollutants such as the 'Long Term Average (LTA)', the 'Product Normalized Discharge Flow (PNDF)', and the 'Variability Factor (VF)'. However, as the first trial of TBELs determination based on the all available analytical data reported, the procedure and the outcome of the study may provide valuable insight on application of TBELs in Korea.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.22 no.5
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• pp.913-918
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• 2006

Both raw wastewater and effluent from a rubber products manufacturing factory were found to be toxic to Daphnia magna though the effluent satisfied current water quality standards. Thus, in order to reduce toxicity, advanced oxidation processes (AOPs) such as gamma-ray (${\gamma}-ray$) treatment and ozonation ($O_3$) were applied. A combined ${\gamma}-rays/O_3$ treatment at 20 kGy after coagulation significantly reduced toxicity of raw wastewater, changing 48-h toxic unit (TU) value from 201.21 to 23.92. However, toxicity of treated water was higher than that of effluent (TU = 12.15). This shows limitation of gamma-ray treatment to remove toxicity of raw wastewater. In case of effluent, the combined ${\gamma}-rays/O_3$ treatment at 20 kGy efficiently decomposed toxic compounds down to non toxic level. This work strongly supports the necessity of toxicity reduction evaluation as well as toxicity-based effluent management.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.557-565
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• 2010

Recently, regulations on toxic compounds in aquatic environment have been strengthened in korea due to the increasing public awareness of the water quality. Typically, these regulations include introduction of emerging toxic compounds and stricter effluent limitations for the already regulated compounds. However, too strict regulations may cause excessive burden on the industry. Therefore it is also important to assess the economic impacts when the new effluent limitation guidelines are introduced. The estimation of the additional cost for the wastewater dischargers to meet the new guidelines are based on the selected treatment technology to handle the hazardous substances and the regulatory levels for effluent limitations. To explore the procedures for cost estimation in enforcing new effluent limitations, a case study was performed specially for 1,4-dichlorobenzene. The pollutants of concern are surveyed for different industrial categories and various treatment technologies. For a given pollutant, the general performances of the treatment technologies are surveyed and a representative technology is selected. For a given technology, the capital cost and annual Operation and Maintenance (O&M) cost was calculated. The calculation of baseline costs to operate ordinary treatment technologies is also important. The ratio between the cost for introducing new treatment process and the baseline cost required for conventional technology was used to evaluate the economic impact on the industry. For 1,4-dichlorobenzene, steam stripping and activated carbon processes were selected as the specific treatment technologies. The cost effects to the regulation of the compound were found to be 6.4% and 14.5% increase in capital cost and O&M cost, respectively, at the flow rate over $2,000m^3/d$ for the categories of synthetic resin and other plastics manufacturing industry. For the case of petrochemical basic compounds manufacturing industry, the cost increases were 5.8% and 12.4%, respectively. It was suggested that cost effect analysis to evaluate the economic impacts of new effluent limitations on the industry is crucial to establish more balanced and reasonable effluent limitations to manage the industrial wastewater containing emerging toxic compounds in the wastewater.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.2
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• pp.191-199
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• 2010

Introduction of Technology-Based Effluent Limitations (TBELs) concepts into Korea requires extensive and through analyses on the expected pollutants reduction effects and the cost factor for the industry side. In addition, the TEBLs should be optimized for the regulatory environments of Korea and be applied in a progressive manner to minimize the undesirable effects. It is also necessary to assess the contribution of each industrial categories's to the pollution of natural water bodies to find the priority of TEBLs application. For these purposes, the pollution loads of various industrial categories were analyzed using risk assessment indicator based on Toxic Weighting Factors (TWFs). First, the TWFs were calculated for the pollutants regulated using the method adopted by USEPA. And the effluent characteristics of the eighty two categories of industry in Korea were investigated. Although the analytical data on the wastewater from different industrial categories are relatively limited, the results from two previous studies were used. The first study, conducted by the National Institute of Environmental Research in 2001~2004, investigated the wastewater characteristics from 255 industrial sources covering the major 20 industrial categories. The second study includes more recent analytical data for the wastewater from 500 industrial sources, covering all the 82 industrial categories. In the result of the pollution loads analyses, the category of 'Synthetic and Chemical manufacture' was found to show the highest raw pollution load. On the other hand the category of 'Ion & Steel manufacture' was found to show the highest effluent pollution loads, which can be considered as the real impacts on natural water streams. The top five categories occupied 62.2% of the total effluent pollution loads. Through the analyses, the relative importances of each industrial categories and the priorities of TEBL-based pollution reduction were determined.

• Journal of Korean Society on Water Environment
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• v.26 no.1
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• pp.1-9
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• 2010

Technology-Based Effluent Limitations (TBELs) is a permit limits for a pollutant that is based on the capability of a treatment technology to reduce the pollutant to a certain concentration. Widely practiced for regulations of industrial wastewater in US, TBELs has been accepted as an effective means that can achieve balanced goals between complete elimination of pollutants discharge and economic feasibility for industries. The review of TBELs application in US and the applicability of TBELs to the domestic industry categories was given in three papers. In the first paper, the development and practices of TBELs in US were reviewed including case studies. The developments of TBELs in US in the four major categories, the metal products & machinery, the petroleum refining, the porcelain enameling and the meat & poultry products were reviewed. The applicability of TBELs to the domestic industrial categories was also assessed. In the second paper, the pollution loads analysis for domestic industrial wastewater was conducted based on risk assessment indicator using Toxic Weighting Factors (TWFs). This is an essential part to determine the priority of TBELs application for the domestic industrial categories. In the last paper, the application of TBELs to the domestic industries was demonstrated through a case-study for the pulp/paper/paperboard category. Direct application of TBELs of US into the Korean regulation system may not be desirable because the specific goals and the environment for the regulations for the two countries may not be identical. For example, unlike US, Korea does not adopt the individual permit system for pollution sources. However, among the unproductive and exhaustive controversies over the uniform regulations regardless of the industrial categories in Korea, the introduction of the principles of TBELs are inevitable and more extensive study for applications of TBELs optimized for Korean regulation system will be necessary.

• Journal of the Korean Society of Marine Environment & Safety
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• v.29 no.2
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• pp.106-117
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• 2023

The social impact of hazardous and noxious substances from marine industrial facilities was evaluated, and implications for the application of social impact assessment items and methods required in the process of setting technology-based effluent limitations were derived. The scope of the study was based on marine industrial facilities in Incheon Metropolitan City. The analysis results are as follows. First, the impact on companies and industries was evaluated as "great," but large companies had little impact on operating profit losses, bankruptcy possibilities, and employment losses, while small and medium-sized companies had a large impact. Second, the impact on the community and economy was evaluated as "less," but it is judged that careful policy intervention is needed because the impact of fishing producers, local tourism workers, and the region can be concentrated and large. Third, it is judged that items and methods for calculating social loss costs and social benefits can be usefully applied in the method of setting technology-based effluent limitations.