Talk:Conventional pollutant

Water pollutant terminology in the U.S.: "Nonconventional" and others

A brief section on "Nonconventional" pollutants was deleted from this article, as it was off-topic, somewhat inaccurate and unreferenced. Some further explanation: I created this page on Conventional pollutant to briefly describe one class of pollutants--conventionals--that has been defined in U.S. environmental law for many years. It is a term that is widely used and understood by water quality professionals in the U.S. The two other classes of water pollutants, using U.S. Clean Water Act terminology, are not yet described in Wikipedia with their own articles. (I will write these articles when I get a chance...). To summarize, the three classes of pollutants are as follows:

1. Conventional pollutants
2. Toxic Pollutants. A list of 65 pollutants and pollutant groups defined in the 1977 Clean Water Act amendments. These are not the only pollutants which are, in fact, toxic, but it is a list defined by Congress and the list is referred to in various legal and regulatory documents. See EPA regulations listing the pollutants at 40 CFR 401.15. Since some items on the list are pollutant groups or classes (e.g. "haloethers"), rather than individual pollutants, this led to some confusion as the list was being implemented by EPA and state regulatory agencies. EPA then published a clarified list, called the Priority Pollutant list, which is still widely used to develop NPDES permit requirements and related regulatory documents. EPA subsequently deleted 3 pollutants from the list, making the current total 126. As with the Toxic Pollutant list, the Priority Pollutant list is not exhaustive. EPA has not updated the list for many years. The list is available on EPA's website at Priority Pollutants. More background is available at "Toxic and Priority Pollutants."
3. Nonconventional Pollutants. This is a term used in the U.S. to refer to all other pollutants not on the above lists. It includes many significant pollutants that are the cause of much concern today, such as nutrients, ammonia, various pesticides, etc. Some of these pollutants are toxic (e.g. pesticides); others are not toxic, but still nasty.

There is no term called "unconventional pollutant" in U.S. regulatory parlance, and introducing that term would only generate additional confusion. (I have found the term occasionally in publications by non-U.S. authors.)

These pages on pollutant classes should stick to the topic of pollutants per se. These are already separate pages on wastewater treatment, industrial wastewater treatment, agricultural wastewater treatment, water quality, etc. that focus on more specialized topics within the realm of water pollution. Moreau1 (talk) 05:18, 22 April 2009 (UTC)