Laserfiche WebLink
<br />Western States Water Council <br />Water Quality Committee <br /> <br />Sheridan, Wyoming <br />October 5,2006 <br /> <br />. <br /> <br />something that is legally defensible. The timing is hard to say. It's a priority, and so we are looking <br />at months versus years. <br /> <br />Tom Stiles commented that one of the most significant comments came from Senator <br />Jeffords. He questioned not only the intent of the rule, but EP A's authority to foresee it and why it <br />was expedited. The states generally agreed -- although it was pretty much shaded toward the western <br />end of the country. The eastern side tended to disagree. Washington, North Dakota, and Michigan <br />said there is someplace in between relative to what the rule is, and that there could be selective <br />designation of utilizing NPDES on certain types. Municipalities and water districts tended to agree, <br />but they also wanted to make sure that you expanded the consideration that water that is in transit <br />through the channel pipes, etc. sometimes undergo little changes that are physical or chemical <br />composition, and they didn't want that to trigger this concept of adding pollutants. Hydropower <br />tended to agree, but wanted to expand the definition so that hydropower wasn't viewed as an <br />intervening industrial use thereby triggering or voiding out the exemption for NPDES. Developers <br />naturally tended to agree. The municipal sewage agencies agreed. They feared that by calling <br />transfers of non-point, it had the potential threat of shifting any responsibilities of the environmental <br />impacts over to the point sources which they were representing, and so it was the classic point/non- <br />point struggle in terms of who is responsible ultimately for clean up. Of course, the point sources are <br />over the barrel because of NPDES. Irrigation districts tended to agree, which was one that EP A <br />clearly had no intention of going after. Canada weighed in. . <br /> <br />Of course, the environmentalists came in against it, and that's where many of the comments <br />came in. Many of the comments were verbatim repeats - someone was just signing their name to <br />what someone else had written up. Environmental concerns were generally centered on allowing <br />potential pollutant water to be discharged into relatively clean water. Friends of the Everglades gave <br />a fairly compelling agreement. Miccosukee weighed in. Other typical environmental groups, such as <br />NRDC, Earth Justice, and others threw together a really huge letter. One of the other significant <br />comments came in from the attorney general's from the eastern states led by the Attorney General for <br />New York state. Given all this, I'm not sure how EPA is going to sort this out. <br /> <br />Roger: Tom, your absolutely right. That's the difficulty we're facing and getting back to <br />having something that is legally defensible. Where are we the strongest? Those discussions are <br />ongoing, and where Catskills fits in. Some of the comments also dealt with designation. Another <br />question I have is when the states say they have plenty of state authority to protect water quality, <br />what exactly does that look like? Is that a state permit or is it some other requirement? This is an <br />educational aspect for me. <br /> <br />Tribal Water Quality Council <br /> <br />Karen Rudek is the lead onthis, but it's still in development. She would still very much like <br />to engage with the Council as 'soon as the Council is set up and have an exchange with . <br />representatives. Perhaps a good time to focus on this would be during the March meetings in <br />Washington, D.C. <br /> <br />12 <br />