State Seeks Help from Washington on Mon Discharges
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
17 August 2009
By Don Hopey
A year after murky water quality problems first surfaced in the
Monongahela River, Pennsylvania is asking the federal Environmental
Protection Agency to set new, tougher pollution limits for the
interstate waterway and public drinking water source.
According to Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection
Secretary John Han ger, the state has issued orders limiting discharges
of total dissolved solids, or TDS, in the Mon River and has started the
lengthy state process of drafting new regulatory controls, but West
Virginia hasn't taken similar steps to address the problem.
As a result, levels of the microscopic contaminants in the river where
it leaves West Virginia and flows into Pennsylvania spiked to almost
600 milligrams per liter early this month, exceeding the federal and
Pennsylvania secondary maximum contaminant levels of 500 milligrams per
liter. West Virginia does not have such a standard but is reviewing
whether to enact one.
"We're not satisfied with the response we've received from West
Virginia and are engaging the EPA," Mr. Hanger said, "because at the
end of the day, without federal involvement, we may not get the kind of
cooperation needed to solve this problem. I personally have concerns
that the posture of West Virginia on this matter is not aggressive
enough.
Mr. Hanger, who complained that West Virginia had not shared much data
on TDS sources and amounts, asked the EPA to intervene. And he said
Pennsylvania has started the federal Clean Water Act process to have
the river classified as "impaired."
Such a determination would allow the EPA to establish a watershedwide
Total Maximum Daily Load limit, or TMDL, which is a calculation of the
maximum amount of a pollutant that a body of water can receive and
still safely meet water quality standards. If a load limit is
established, the cumulative discharges from public utilities,
industrial facilities and other point sources would be restricted.
Pennsylvania is expected to submit a package of river flow data to the
EPA supporting the "impairment" determination by April of next year.
Not all the TDS loading is occurring in West Virginia, Mr. Hanger said,
but so much is being discharged into the Monongahela River there that
when the river flow is low in late summer and fall, its ability to
dilute the dissolved solids to acceptable concentrations is completely
used up by the time it reaches Point Marion, along Pennsylvania's
southern border in Fayette County.
Sources of dissolved solids include sewage treatment plants, power
plant scrubber and coolant water, storm water runoff, abandoned mine
drainage, a host of industrial activities and wastewater from oil and
gas drilling, especially the millions of gallons produced by deep wells
tapping into the Marcellus shale gas bed.
For the past year, Pennsylvania has restricted the amount of wastewater
from those deep gas drilling operations that sewage treatment plants
can accept to no more than 1 percent of their total water discharges
into the river.
West Virginia has only recently urged treatment facilities to limit
intake of well waste water. And officials there said the sewage
treatment plant in Clarksburg, the only such facility in the state that
was permitted to accept well drilling waste water, stopped last month.
According to the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection,
most Marcellus shale well waste waster is disposed of by injecting it
deep underground. Scott Mandirola, director of West Virginia DEP's
Division of Water and Waste Management, said West Virginia will
"cooperate fully" with Pennsylvania and the EPA to develop a TMDL
standard for the Mon.
Last fall and winter, TDS levels in the river hit 800 milligrams per
liter -- significantly exceeding the Pennsylvania and federal secondary
drinking water standard -- causing bad tasting and smelling drinking
water from public utilities that draw water from the river and problems
for industrial users.
The pollutant levels have not been as high this year as last, but
monitoring by U.S. Steel at its Clairton Coke Works water intake has
shown recent increases. Erin DiPietro, a U.S. Steel spokeswoman, said
the pollutant levels have not impacted operations, but the company will
continue to provide the DEP with monitoring data.
For most people, high TDS levels do not make tap water unsafe to drink.
But at least one individual allergic to sulfates, a component of TDS,
broke out in hives last fall.
"It needs to be mentioned that people with certain allergies can have
problems," said Marie Miller of Upper St. Clair, whose 11-year-old son,
James, developed itchy hives for two weeks. "It's not a
life-threatening problem, but I called our water company,
Pennsylvania-American, and they said it will probably get worse again
in the fall."
Water treatment plants -- there are 11 public water suppliers on the 70
miles of Mon flowing south to north in Pennsylvania -- are not equipped
to remove TDS, a measure of all elements dissolved in water, including
carbonates, chlorides, sulfates, nitrates, sodium, potassium, calcium
and magnesium.
Public water suppliers using the river as a source include
Pennsylvania-American Water Co., which is the largest with 86,000
customers in southern Allegheny, Fayette and Washington counties,
Charleroi Municipal Authority, Belle Vernon Municipal Authority,
Washington Township Municipal Authority, Newell Municipal Authority,
Tri-County Joint Municipal Authority, Southwestern Pennsylvania Water
Authority, Carmichaels Municipal Authority, Masontown Water Works, East
Dunkard Water Association and Dunkard Valley Joint Municipal Authority.
TDS levels in the Mon River have been lower since the beginning of
August due to increased river flows caused by recent rains. But the
Pennsylvania DEP expects them to fluctuate through, and has recommended
that customers with concerns should use bottled water to drink and
prepare food when TDS levels are high.
"It's not an issue that will be solved in a couple of months," Mr.
Hanger said, adding that Pennsylvania's new regulations for dissolved
solids probably won't be in place until the end of 2010. "Ultimately,
it will take federal involvement because it's a multi-state problem and
we don't control what's going on in West Virginia."
Don Hopey can be reached at dhopey@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1983.