Water Quality Standards Protected in West Virginia

Opponents of development, and of mountaintop mining, often decry West Virginia's alleged failure to comply with federal water quality standards. But take a look at this article from the Columbia Tribune, which highlights a crucial difference between some states and West Virginia. In Missouri, evidently, not all streams are protected by all criteria necessary to protect beneficial uses. They are only protected by narrative criteria, or "free-froms", that require streams to be free from floating scum, odors, deposits or sludge banks, visible color, toxic concentrations of chemicals, and other qualitative and aesthetic concerns. While those limitations also apply in West Virginia, they are not the only water quality protections that are in place.

For those new to water quality standards, numeric criteria can be thought of as the "safe levels" that protect the uses that are assigned to the stream. The "uses" are just what they sound like - the use of a stream for recreation (e.g. wading or boating), or by aquatic life (e.g. fish or invertebrates). If a stream is assigned an aquatic life use, numeric criteria are to be set at levels that, if they are not exceeded, will not kill aquatic life or interfere with reproduction. For example, in West Virginia total mercury levels cannot exceed 2.4 micrograms per liter (ug/l) to protect aquatic life, but the limit for protection of human health is .14 ug/l if the stream is a public water supply. EPA has some good background information on water quality standards that explains this.

In West Virginia, every stream is assigned at least 2 uses - protection of aquatic life and water contact recreation, as required by Section 101 of the Clean Water Act. See section 6.1 of West Virginia's water quality standards. Unlike Missouri, you never have a situation where a stream is without numeric criteria assigned to it.