Poor Mon River Water Quality May Prompt "Impaired" Label

Pittsburgh Business Times
3 December 2010
By Anya Litvak

Total Dissolved Solids measurements provided by Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of West Virginia Water Research Institute at West Virginia University.

The Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection may ask the federal government to designate parts of the Monongahela River as impaired, a tag that would jump start a government effort to curb companies’ discharges into the river.

The state agency plans to send recommendations to the Environmental Protection Agency early next week on ways to trim sulfates and total dissolved solids in the Mon River, according to spokesman Michael Smith. He declined to say if the DEP will ask for the "impaired" designation, but Ken Zapinski, senior vice president of transportation and infrastructure for the Allegheny Conference on Community Development, said the agency indicated as much in a heads-up letter sent to the conference on Tuesday.

In that document, according to Zapinski, the DEP said it would be mailing its suggestions to the EPA about improving water quality on the section of the river near the Elizabeth Lock and Dam the next day. Smith said that has been delayed until next week.

“We were able to talk to them and persuade them that they needed to have further discussion,” Zapinksi said.

If the EPA designates that section of the river "impaired," the DEP would have to place restrictions on discharges made into the river that would bring the water quality up to standard. According to the Allegheny Conference, companies discharging water into the area of the Mon around the Elizabeth Lock and Dam include United States Steel Corp., Allegheny Energy Inc., CONSOL Energy Inc. and Eastman Chemical.

The Allegheny Conference is asking its members to contact the regulatory agency and argue against an impairment designation. In a memo prepared for businesses, the conference says the designation “would severely threaten industrial, commercial, real estate and even municipal development along the Mon River, creating a severe economic disadvantage for the Mon Valley versus other watersheds."

The conference is questioning the method used by the DEP to calculate TDS, which must be below 500 parts per million to stay within drinking water quality.

According to Paul Ziemkiewicz, director of the West Virginia Water Research Institute, which has been measuring Monongahela River water quality every two weeks for the past year and a half, the TDS count around the Elizabeth Lock and Dam over the past six months was between 289 ppm (on June 24) and 491 (on Aug 19).

DEP’s Smith said the agency is still working out its recommendations.

"We are looking at the issues certainly, and the Mon is among them," Smith said. "We’re spending this week evaluating the data we have on hand, and we will make our decision next week.

"It’s important to note that early in this process, the Allegheny Conference expressed concerns over our samplings methods," Smith continued. "We worked with them and revised our techniques to resolve many of their concerns."

Anya Litvak covers energy, transportation, utilities, gaming and accounting for the Pittsburgh Business Times. Contact her at alitvak@bizjournals.com or (412) 208-3824.