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DP Article On Water Quality Rule Meeting
DP Article On Water Quality Rule Meeting
DP Article On Water Quality Rule Meeting
At a virtual press conference the day before the meeting, Rule Making Review
Committee member Delegate Larry Rowe, D-Kanawha, held up the massive
ream of comments on what he and others have nicknamed the Dirty Water Bill. “I
think it’s indicative of how important this bill is,” he said.
Asked about the issue on Friday, committee co-chair Sen. Dave Sypolt, R-
Preston, said, “It was delayed, but I expect to take that up as-is, to my
knowledge. “Of course, in the world of Rule Making and Review, sometime things
change and evolve going forward.”
The water quality rule in question deals with waste discharge permits. The
Department of Environmental Protection first took it up in 2018. It proposed to
update the 60 human health water quality parameters within the rule for such
pollutants as aluminum, arsenic, copper, barium and manganese — to conform
to the most recent Environmental Protection Agency recommendations.
(EPA actually sets parameters for 94 pollutants but DEP has regulated only 60 of
them).
Some of the parameters were more stringent than existing parameters and some
were less stringent, based on new data since the previous EPA
recommendations made in the 1980s and 1990s.
At the behest of industry, which wanted more time to evaluate the standards and
develop more state- and site-specific measures for some of the 60, the Rule
Making Review in November 2018 directed DEP to remove the updated
standards and keep the old ones.
Then, during the 2019 legislative session, one committee put the EPA/DEP-
recommended standards back in, only to have Senate Judiciary take them back
out in favor of a compromise delay maneuver. The measure that passed in SB
163 that year directed DEP to propose updates no later than April 1 this year for
consideration during the 2021 session.
Opponents of the new version of the rule continued to say during the press
conference that it could do more harm than good.
“We are competing for industries to come to our state and that also means
competing for people to live here and work here” said Linda Frame West Virginia
Environmental Council President Linda Frame. More pollution won’t attract
people.”
Fleischauer and Hansen were among those who noted that of the 13 pollutants
subject to weakened standards, nine are carcinogens.
Dow did not answer Hansen’s request to specify which pollutants it was referring
to.
Rule Making Review is expected to meet again in November; no date has been
set.