EPA signs off on new Oregon water quality rules - strictest in the nation
Scott Learn
The Oregonian
10/18/2011
The Environmental Protection Agency has approved Oregon's new standards for toxic water pollution, the strictest in the United States.
The new standards, approved Monday by the EPA's Seattle office, are designed to protect tribal members and others who eat large amounts of contaminated fish.
Oregon's current water quality standards are built on an assumption that people eat 17.5 grams of fish a day, about a cracker's worth and typical of most states. The proposed standard boosts that to 175 grams a day, just shy of an 8-ounce meal.
The change dramatically tightens Oregon's human health criteria for a host of pollutants, including mercury, flame retardants, PCBs, dioxins, plasticizers and pesticides.
That could boost cost for industry such as paper mills and for municipal sewage treatment plants, increasing sewer rates.
It could also lower the health risks for those who eat a lot of local fish -- an estimated 100,000 Oregonians, including 20,000 children, according to a committee set up to consider the health effects of the new standard.
The Department of Environmental Quality, which will implement the new standards, has said waivers will be available for industry and treatment plants that can't meet them right away.
EPA endorsed DEQ's approach on variances, but said it will review each variance request. Polluters getting variances will also have to submit a pollution reduction plan.
DEQ has assured farmers and foresters -- and concerned legislators -- that it will continue to allow the departments of agriculture and forestry to take the lead on enforcement of water quality violations for polluted runoff from farms and forests.
