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Information Sheet IS-13 Reissued Waste Discharge Requirements General Order R5-2013-0122 Existing Milk Cow Dairies necessary to accommodate important economic or social development in the area in which the waters are located" that the Board can allow for degradation. (40 C.F.R. § 131.12.) As described in the Question and Answers Document mentioned above, some of the factors that the Board considers in determining whether degradation is consistent with the maximum benefit to people of the State include: economic and social costs, tangible and intangible, of the proposed discharge, as well as the environmental aspects of the proposed discharge, including benefits to be achieved by enhanced pollution controls. USEPA guidance clarifies that the federal anti-degradation provision, .. is not a `no growth' rule and was never designed or intended to be such. It is a policy that allows public decisions to be made on important environmental actions. Where the state intends to provide for development, it may decide under this section, after satisfying the requirements for intergovernmental coordination and public participation, that some lowering of water quality in "high quality waters" is necessary to accommodate important economic or social development" (EPA Handbook for Developing Watershed Plans to Restore and Protect Our Waters, Chapter 4). APU 90-004 requires the Board to consider both the costs to the discharger and the costs imposed upon the affected public in the NPDES context, and states that "[c]ost savings to the discharger, standing alone, absent a demonstration of how these savings are necessary to accommodate `important social and economic development' are not adequate justification' for allowing degradation." It is, however, important to keep the "maximum benefit to people of the state" requirement in context. Neither the State Anti-Degradation Policy nor the Water Code allows unreasonable affects to beneficial uses. Therefore, such unreasonable effects (such as the unmitigated pollution of a drinking water source) are not the focus of the Board's inquiry, because they are legally prohibited. Instead, the State Anti-Degradation Policy requires the Board to consider the costs that may be imposed on other dischargers as a result of the degradation that the Board is allowing to occur. For example, if the Board allows a discharger to operate a sub-standard facility that degrades a high-quality groundwater, dischargers situated downstream (for surface waters) or downgradient (for groundwaters)from that discharge would be discharging to a receiving water that lacks any capacity to assimilate additional waste loads. This may impose higher treatment costs on the downstream/downgradient discharger. Ultimately, the Board may allow degradation to occur following a demonstration that the degradation is consistent with the maximum benefit to the people of the state; the State Anti- Degradation Policy is not a no-growth or no-degradation policy. However, the Board must justify why this degradation is beneficial not only to the discharger, but to others reliant on the water quality of the receiving water body. Step g: the Board must ensure that discharges will not unreasonably affect present and anticipated beneficial use of such water, will not result in water quality less than that prescribed in relevant policies, and will not cause pollution or nuisance. The Water Code defines "pollution" to mean an alteration of the quality of the waters of the state by waste to a degree which unreasonably affects either the waters for beneficial uses or the facilities which serve these beneficial uses, i.e., violation of water quality objectives. (Wat. Code, § 13050(1).) The term