ALTERNATIVE CYANIDE STANDARDS IN ILLINOIS
A COST-BENEFIT ANALYSIS
Linda L. Huff, Associate Economist/Engineer
James E. Huff, Associate Environmental Engineer
IIT Research Institute
Chicago, Illinois 60616
INTRODUCTION
Rivers and streams are properties shared by both industrial firms and citizens. Monetary
fees are seldom assessed for the use and/or degradation of these waters, and as a result pollution can be considered an external effect. That is, when a discharger adversely affects downstream users or consumers, then that discharger has created an external effect. An external
effect occurs when the activities of one economic entity have a direct impact on the production or preference function of an independent entity.
This external effect is not reflected in the discharger's cost or revenue function, and
therefore he does not adjust for the downstream problems. These unconsidered costs may
result in a misallocation of resources. To achieve an efficient solution the discharger should
be required to assign these pollution costs in his cost function or, in other words, the costs
must be "internalized."
There are many methods utilized by government agencies to internalize the costs of pollution in an attempt to achieve satisfactory water quality. The State of Illinois had adopted
effluent regulations based upon concentration limits as the primary method for internalizing
pollution costs.
Illinois placed into effect a total cyanide effluent standard of 0.025 mg/1 on December 31,
1973. This standard is not to be exceeded in any 24-hr composite sample. Modifications of
the cyanide regulations were proposed to the Illinois Pollution Control Board which is currently holding hearings on this subject. This study was initiated to provide some insight as
to the appropriate effluent cyanide standard.
ILLINOIS DISCHARGERS OF CYANIDE
In order to properly evaluate the cyanide standard, the number of cyanide dischargers
and magnitude of their loading were identified. Cyanide is often associated with the petroleum and steel industries; however, many other types of dischargers currently exceed the
0.025 mg/1 total cyanide standard. From the Illinois EPA monitoring data, a breakdown of
cyanide dischargers by industrial type was prepared and is presented in Table I. The petroleum refining and steel industries account for only 13 of the 70 dischargers that violated the
0.025 mg/1 standard. Ten of the thirteen chemical dischargers (SIC 28) reported levels above
0.025 mg/1 in at least one of the samples taken by the Illinois EPA. Also, all direct dischargers within SIC 34>which includes plating operations,discharged effluents with more than
0.050 mg/1 total cyanide. Perhaps of greatest interest is the tabulation regarding municipal
sanitary districts. Approximately 31 municipalities with cyanide levels indicated in their
effluent exceeded 0.025 mg/1 total cyanide. This may be attributed to the plating and other
metal treating discharges to the sanitary systems. Thus, the dischargers which may represent
a water quality problem and could be affected by a modified regulation include chemical
plants, platers, oil, steel and at least 31 municipalities.
Since either a concentration of cyanide dischargers on a waterway or a significant discharge would affect water quality, the dischargers of cyanide were located by river system.
This showed that the Illinois, Des Plaines, and Fox River contained the largest number of
dischargers.
The pounds per day of cyanide discharged is also of interest, when evaluating the impact
on receiving streams. For the four major groups discharging cyanide, the following ranges
were computed.
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