EPA's Implementation of the Industrial Cost Recovery Provisions of P.L. 92-500

Selected aspects of the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) efforts to implement the industrial cost recovery provisions of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 were reviewed. These 1972 amendments authorized EPA to make grants to municipalities for 75 percent of the eligible costs to construct publicly-owned waste treatment plants. Grantees were inconsistent in determining which industrial users should be included or excluded from an industrial cost recovery system and had differing interpretations of the types of waste subject to industrial cost recovery. EPA approved industrial cost recovery systems where the costs incurred by the grantees to develop and administer the systems exceeded the amounts to be recovered from industrial users through industrial cost recovery payments. In addition, many grantees felt that the costs associated with administering an industrial cost recovery system will not be recovered through industries' industrial cost recovery payments.