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.
The concessions worry environmental groups, who say the new
rules could end up being a paper exercise.
But EPA declined to weigh in on regulation of farm and
forest pollution, saying it's a state matter.
The agency also said it understands reaching the tough new
standards won't happen overnight.
"The EPA understands that the implementation of these
standards is on a long-term path," wrote Michael Bussell,
director of the EPA's Office of Water and Watersheds in
Seattle.
Processing variance requests and addressing other issues
arising from the more stringent standards is "a high
priority," Bussell said.
The standards take effect immediately, DEQ said, but will
only be applied as water pollution permits come up for
renewal.