Water: Water Quality Standards Academy
Education & TrainingTraining ProgramsWater Quality Standards AcademyBasic Course: Supplemental Topics (NPDES) QuizBasic Course: Supplemental Topics (NPDES) Quiz
Course Navigation
- Listing Impaired Waters and Developing TMDLs
- Monitoring & Assessment
- NPDES Permit Program
- Point Source Control
- Permitting Authority
- Types of Permits
- Categories of Permits
- Permit Components
- Key Considerations
- Technology-Based Determination
- Water Quality-Based Determination
- WQBELs Process
- Step 1: Identify WQSs
- Step 2: Assess Concentration
- Pollutants of Concern
- Dilution/Mixing
- Critical Conditions
- Dilution/Mixing Allowance
- Step 3: Establish Need
- Step 4: Calculate Limits
- Summary
- Quiz
- Human Health Ambient Water Quality Criteria
- Aquatic Life Criteria
Brief Topic Quiz
To complete your review of the topic in this module, please take the self-assesement quiz by reviewing each question and considering the possible responses.
A note about the quiz:
At the bottom of this page are the answers for this section.
Answer each of the questions below
1. For jurisdictions where the NPDES program has not been authorized, the EPA Region serves as the permitting authority and may carry out which of the following implementation functions?
- Issuing permits.
- Conducting compliance and monitoring activities.
- Enforcing the requirements of the permit.
- None of the above.
- All of the above.
2. When a State/Tribe includes a technology-based effluent limit in an NPDES permit, it is a performance standard only and the permitting authority generally cannot require the use of a particular technology to achieve the limit.
- True.
- False.
3. Which one of the following is not necessarily involved in assessing the need for a WQBEL?
- Characterizing the effluent.
- Establishing a TMDL.
- Identifying relevant water quality standards.
- Characterizing the receiving water.
4. Statement: Where a State/Tribe’s water quality standards do not allow for consideration of dilution/mixing, water quality criteria must be attained at the effluent’s discharge location in the receiving water.
- True.
- False.
5. Which is most correct about what POTWs can treat, according to the definition used for the NPDES program?
- Municipal sewage.
- Industrial wastes.
- Both.
- Neither.
Answers
- For jurisdictions where the NPDES program has not been authorized, the EPA Region serves as the permitting authority and may carry out which of the following implementation functions?
Answer:All of the above. Most States, however, have been authorized by EPA under the NPDES program to issue point source discharge permits, with the Agency functioning in an oversight role.
- True or False Statement: When a State/Tribe includes a technology-based effluent limit in an NPDES permit, it is a performance standard only and the permitting authority generally cannot require the use of a particular technology to achieve the limit.
Answer: True. It is generally left to the discharger to decide what approach it will take to comply with the permit’s TBEL requirements.
- Which one of the following is not necessarily involved in assessing the need for a WQBEL?
Answer: Establishing a TMDL. A TMDL is not a necessary prerequisite to developing a WQBEL, and in many permitting situations the permit writer is not dealing with an impaired water. But if a relevant TMDL has been established with a waste load allocation, then the pollutant is of concern and needs to be addressed.
- True or False Statement: Where a State/Tribe’s water quality standards do not allow for consideration of dilution/mixing, water quality criteria must be attained at the effluent’s discharge location in the receiving water.
Answer:True. However, under the CWA, States/Tribes have the discretion to decide whether to include effluent dilution/mixing as part of their water quality standards.
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Which is most correct about what POTWs can treat, according to the definition used for the NPDES program?
Answer: Both. Publicly owned treatment works can treat either municipal sewage or industrial wastes or a combination of the two.
