Category: Chemical/Petrochemical

EPA Issues Final PFAS National Primary Drinking Water Regulation

Margaret Anne Hill and Camila Thorpe ●

On April 10, 2024, the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) finalized the National Primary Drinking Water Regulation (“NPDWR”) for six per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (“PFAS”). PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” are widely used in industry and consumer products. According to the EPA, these chemicals have been linked to serious adverse health effects, including cancer and other serious illnesses. The final rule establishes national standards for specific PFAS, both individually and as mixtures, often found in drinking water. [i]

The Final Rule

The final rule sets individual enforceable Maximum Contaminant Level (“MCL”) limits for five PFAS.[ii] MCLs are the highest levels of a contaminant that are allowed in drinking water. For mixtures containing two or more of four PFAS,[iii] the rule sets a Hazard Index Level. Finally, the rule also sets a Maximum Contaminant Level Goal (“MCLG”) for each individual PFAS and mixtures, which is a non-enforceable health goal set at a level below which there is no known or expected risk to health.

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EPA’s Focus on Ethylene Oxide


Margaret Anne Hill, Holli B. Packer, and Robert P. Scott ●


The Environmental Protection Agency issued a final rule on March 14 that will require significantly reduced emissions from commercial facilities that sterilize medical devices and other equipment using ethylene oxide gas (“EtO Rule”). The EtO Rule amends the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (“NESHAP”), 40 C.F.R. Part 63, Subpart O, and is projected to reduce EtO emissions by over 90 percent nationwide for commercial sterilizers. The impetus for the Rule is a complaint filed by Earthjustice on December 14, 2022, in which the non-governmental organization (“NGO”) requested both injunctive and declaratory relief based upon its claim that the Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) had violated Section 112(d) of the Clean Air Act for the past 16 years by failing to review and revise air toxics standards for commercial sterilizers.

Emissions Controls and Reporting

The EtO Rule imposes strengthened standards for EtO emissions from the proposed rule following the receipt of public comments. It requires continuous emissions monitoring and quarterly reporting for most commercial sterilizers to ensure that emissions are controlled. Notably, the EtO Rule establishes revised standards for existing sources such as sterilization chamber vents and aeration room vents, as well as for previously unregulated emissions that escape via building leaks and chamber exhaust vents.

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Cooling Towers: Not So Cool?

Frederick M. Lowther

Anyone who has been in a tall building looking down on shorter buildings has seen the usual array of mechanical “boxes” with large spinning fans. Those “cooling towers” sit atop tens of thousands of buildings across the country, from hotels to office buildings, hospitals, university and government buildings, and residential towers. Cooling towers also sit adjacent to many industrial facilities, such as petrochemical plants, where cooling by exhaustion of heat is part of the industrial process. More recently, there is the advent of truly enormous data centers, which are the guts of operations of “public cloud” companies, such as Google, Amazon, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, Oracle, IBM, etc. In many cases, these data centers rely on water-based cooling towers, which control temperatures for the large spaces housing computers/servers, and which are often adjacent to thousands of people. It is now estimated that there are as many as two million cooling towers operating in the United States. Continue reading “Cooling Towers: Not So Cool?”

New PA DEP Data Confirms That Methane Emissions Continue to Plummet from Unconventional Natural Gas Production in Pennsylvania

Michael L. Krancer

Pennsylvania DEP’s 2015 Air Emissions Inventory for Unconventional Natural Gas Operations is out. It was released late in the day on Thursday before the Labor Day weekend so there will be a lot of “debrief” as time goes on. But here is an early take. Continue reading “New PA DEP Data Confirms That Methane Emissions Continue to Plummet from Unconventional Natural Gas Production in Pennsylvania”

Stirring Up the Hornet’s Nest: Political Risk and Infrastructure

Michael L. Krancer

As the agenda at this year’s Northeast U.S. Petrochemical Construction Conference (June 19-20, Pittsburgh) will attest, there’s one thing that any new buildout of downstream petrochemical facility needs and that is an ample and reliable supply of upstream and midstream feedstock extraction and transportation. In the past supply was much easier to count on than it is today. Today’s new landscape of political opposition to hydrocarbons poses new risks that must be managed just like any other financial or enterprise risk. The opposition is committed to nothing short of destruction of the hydrocarbons business from the well-pad to the chemical plant to the consumer. Thus far, industry has underestimated this political risk and that is proving to be costly. Continue reading “Stirring Up the Hornet’s Nest: Political Risk and Infrastructure”