Angola City Council weighs legal route over five-year compliance plan for wastewater chloride limits

Craig Williams, a former superintendent of the Angola Wastewater Treatment Plant, told the Angola City Council that meeting numeric chloride limits in the plant's discharge permit would require costly, technically difficult steps that still might not achieve long-term compliance.

Williams summarized nearly two decades of work, saying the plant has long operated under a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit administered by the Indiana Department of Environmental Management and that Angola is currently the only Indiana permit holder with an individual chloride variance. He told the council that engineering studies and outreach efforts have not produced a reliable path to meet the water-quality-based effluent limit IDEM calculates for the plant.

The issue matters because IDEM has signaled that EPA Region 5 is unlikely to approve future variance renewals, and Angola's current variance and permit cycle approach renewal in May. Council members said the potential capital and operating costs could impose a significant burden on residents and local businesses if…