DEP Holds Meeting on Water Quality Standards

The WV DEP Division of Water and Waste Management held a meeting yesterday to discuss plans for changes to water quality standards that it will propose in 2010 for adoption by the Legislature in 2011. This is pre-planning for the state's triennial review of water quality standards, mandated by the Clean Water Act.

The Power Point presentations that they used will be up on the website shortly, and when they're there I'll link them to an article here. In the meantime, it maybe helpful to know that they addressed nutrient criteria for rivers and streams, which turned out to be phosphorus only; mercury criteria and the results of a fish consumption study; total dissolved solids criteria; and iron criteria for trout waters.

The following is a report from Ken Ward on the meeting. What Ken has reported is accurate, but it doesn't convey the whole story. The DEP is considering raising the iron criteria for trout streams because it is lower than necessary to protect trout and, in many locations, it is lower than natural levels of iron in streams, even if you took out all effects of human activity. And the reference to Marcellus Shale discharges contributing to high TDS is misleading, at least in West Virginia, since almost all Marcellus shale water is injected through UIC wells or otherwise disposed, not put in state rivers. High TDS is generally driven by discharges from old mining sites.

DEP considering relaxed iron rules for trout streams

West Virginia regulators are working on a plan that would double the legal limit of iron allowed in the state's trout streams, state Department of Environmental Protection officials announced Monday.
By Ken Ward Jr.
Staff writer
CHARLESTON , W.Va. -- West Virginia regulators are working on a plan that would double the legal limit of iron allowed in the state's trout streams, state Department of Environmental Protection officials announced Monday. DEP officials said the change is one being considered as part of their review of state water quality standards, required every three years by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Dave Montali, head of the DEP's stream cleanup unit, said agency officials are having trouble devising plans by which some trout streams can meet the state's current limit of 0.5 parts per million of iron. So they want to increase the limit to 1.0 parts per million, the level currently recommended by the EPA. Montali said surrounding states all have limits that are looser than West Virginia 's, and DEP officials could not find a single state with a standard as strong as West Virginia 's. Montali also cited a more than 30-year-old state study that said trout could survive iron levels as high as 1.37 parts per million. "There is information out there that suggests a more lenient criteria might be appropriate," Montali said. "We're committed to taking a look at the criteria." If eventually approved by the DEP and the Legislature, the change would loosen pollution permit limits for companies, including coal operations, that discharge iron into state streams that support reproducing trout populations.

The announcement of the proposal came during a Monday afternoon meeting held to begin public outreach on the DEP's latest triennial review of water quality standards. It's the second such review to be conducted by the DEP since the agency took over water quality standards' authority from the state Environmental Quality Board in 2005.

DEP officials also said they have no plans to propose a tightening of West Virginia 's limit on the amount of mercury considered legal in fish tissue. Currently, the state's limit is 0.5 parts per million. The EPA recommends a lower limit of 0.3 parts per million. Mike Arcuri of the DEP said a survey conducted last year found that West Virginians eat only about half as much fish as they catch from local streams as the nationwide estimate the EPA used to develop its recommended standard. If the state survey figure -- a little more than 9 grams of fish per month, compared to EPA's national average of 17.5 grams per month -- is used, the state's mercury limit turns out to be perfectly adequate, Arcuri said. Arcuri said the DEP's survey, conducted by an outside contractor, did not account for whether low-income populations in West Virginia eat more fish they catch than other state residents.

Also during Monday's meeting, DEP's Pat Campbell said the agency is studying but not currently proposing any sort of water quality limits for total dissolved solids to address growing concerns about disposal of fluids from large-scale oil and gas drilling in the Marcellus Shale formation. EPA recommends standards in the range from 250 parts per million to 500 parts per million, and surrounding states such as Pennsylvania, Kentucky, Ohio and Virginia have or are moving to adopt such standards. West Virginia does not have a water quality standard for total dissolved solids. "This is the beginning of the state considering whether to have a TDS criteria and what that number should be," Campbell said.