Gas Industry May Fight DEP Water Quality Plan

The Associated Press
7 October 2010
By The Associated Press

MORGANTOWN, W.Va. (AP) - The Department of Environmental Protection is likely to get opposition from the gas industry next year as it tries to sell lawmakers on standards for pollutants called total dissolved solids in West Virginia waterways.

At the West Virginia Water Conference in Morgantown on Thursday, attorney David Yaussey said the DEP's current recommended limit for salts, chlorides and other dissolved solids is too strict. The 500 milligrams per liter threshold is stricter than what the Environmental Protection Agency recommends, he argued, and essentially treats both small streams and large rivers the same way - as public drinking-water sources.

Yaussey, whose clients include the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association, said a level of 1,000 milligrams per liter or higher "would be more appropriate."

But panel moderator Stephanie Timmermeyer, who ran the DEP for more than five years, said she would have to disagree.

"Even if it is not a source of drinking water now," she said, "it could be at some point in the future."

Scott Mandirola, head of DEP's Division of Water and Waste Management, defended the proposal that was recommended earlier this year and is currently circulating for public comment.

Regulators are particularly concerned about the concentration of solids during the low water-flow period from July to October, he said. When there is less volume in a waterway, pollution becomes more concentrated, and total dissolved solids can harm aquatic life.

Dissolved solids come from a variety of sources, including coal mines. They make water taste and smell bad.

They became an issue after Pennsylvania residents complained about the quality of water in the Monongahela River. The anxiety intensified after a massive fish kill last year on Dunkard Creek, a stream that runs for 43 miles along the Pennsylvania-West Virginia border.

Investigators concluded that golden algae killed the fish, but dissolved solids created conditions that helped that algae bloom flourish, choking off oxygen to countless fish, mussels, salamanders and other aquatic life.

Although the Monongahela has gotten the most attention, Mandirola said it is behind four other waterways - some of which are public drinking water sources - with significant levels of dissolved solids.

Dunkard Creek, the West Fork River, the Coal River and the Tug Fork River all had higher levels than the Mon, Mandirola said.

"That's why we're going for a statewide standard as opposed to a Mon River standard," he said. "... We're trying to be protective to keep West Virginia waters suitable for consumption by citizens and industry."

Surface waters, he noted, are the main source of drinking water for 1.2 million people, or 67 percent of West Virginia's population.

Although Mandirola acknowledged the debate will really begin when lawmakers take up the rules during their next session, "we wouldn't have proposed it in standards if we didn't think it was a significant concern."

To not act on the threat, he said, "would be irresponsible."