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Chemical companies are pushing lawmakers to roll back long-standing regulations intended to protect all bodies of water in the state of West Virginia.
These regulations are usually developed over several months, with ample opportunity for members of the public to provide input.
Under the federal Clean Water Act, waterways are designated for different purposes, including drinking, fishing and water contact recreation. A designation determines what water quality standards apply and establishes pollution discharge limits in permits issued to businesses.
Currently, any water sources in West Virginia that are being used or could be used for drinking water are classified under Category A. This means that companies that discharge pollutants into that water are supposed to limit those discharges to levels that are safe for human consumption.
And almost all streams and rivers in the state currently have that designation, whether they have drinking water intakes or not.
On Monday, lawmakers considered new rules that would allow waterways to be recategorized if it’s demonstrated that they don’t have the capacity to reliably and continuously support a public water system.
Lawmakers brought up the changes without notice, fast-tracking the process and providing little to no chance for people to comment.
Manufacturing companies have bucked against tighter regulations and pushed for looser ones for years. Changing the designation of any body of water from Category A to a lower designation would allow companies to discharge higher concentrations of pollution into that water.
“We’re opposed to any weakening to existing criteria, so we’re not pleased with the idea that this would happen,” said Jennie Smith, West Virginia Rivers Coalition executive director. “The designation for all waters should be Category A.”
In their weekly legislative updates on Friday, the West Virginia Environmental Council warned that the House Energy and Public Works Committee would be taking up consideration of new rules, including one relating to the state’s water quality standards.
But the rules and the proposed changes to West Virginia’s water quality standards were not on the committee’s agenda. The only bill related to Department of Environmental Protection rules that was listed was HB 2233, which dealt with an update to state air quality rules.
However, on the first day the measure was being considered and the only day that members of the public could testify on the measure under new House committee rules, the committee introduced a substitute for HB 2233 during the meeting, which included the proposed changes to the permitting process for water designation.
As of Tuesday afternoon, the new version of the bill was still not uploaded to the legislative website and not available to the public.
When questioning a DEP representative about the new rules proposal, Del. Evan Hansen, D-Monongalia, asked why the amendments to the water quality standards rules were being proposed now, instead of through the lengthy legislative rule-making process.
DEP Deputy Secretary Scott Mandirola told Hansen that the change was proposed to the state agency by “outside entities.”
“You mentioned that this was proposed by an outside entity. Which entity?” Hansen asked.
“West Virginia Manufacturers,” Mandirola replied. “We had these discussions on Category A, which is drinking water use, for years.”
Bill Bissett, the president of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, said in an email that the change is so “that water sources that are physically incapable of being public water supplies are not treated as public water supplies.”
In August, the Chemours Company, a member of the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, appealed a permit that allows the facility to discharge into the Dry Run stream, currently designated for drinking water.
The company argued that the improper categorization of the stream “as a public water supply” resulted in discharge permit limits that were inapplicable.
Hansen questioned David Yaussy, a lobbyist for both the state’s manufacturers association and Chemours, about the motivation for the changes to the drinking water use designation.
Yaussy, speaking on behalf of the WVMA, told him that it was so “we could have permit limits that reflect the use that they’re supposed to protect.”
Further into his line of questioning, Hansen asked Yaussy about the effects of removing a waterway’s drinking water designation.
“So the impact of that would be to modify the permit to allow more pollution to be discharged?” said Hansen.
Yaussy said, “It could.”
The next time the committee meets — scheduled for Thursday — they could vote on the rules.
Reach reporter Sarah Elbeshbishi at sarah@mountainstatespotlight.org.
