W.Va., Pa. Regulators Wrangle Over Monongahela River
Aug. 24 meeting will review options.
The State Journal
28 August 2009
By Pam Kasey
MORGANTOWN -- West Virginia environmental officials say they are
working diligently to manage contaminants in the Monongahela River
despite a Pennsylvania official's view that not enough is being done
upriver.
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection Secretary John
Hanger expressed dissatisfaction in a Aug. 17 Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
story with West Virginia's cooperation on preventing high levels of
total dissolved solids (TDS) in the river.
"I was absolutely surprised," said Patrick Campbell, assistant director
of the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection's Division
of Water and Waste Management.
Campbell, who participated recently in a conference call among the two
states' environment secretaries and the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency, said, "I certainly didn't leave the call with the feeling that
they thought we hadn't been cooperative."
This situation first arose last fall, when low river flows couldn't
dilute TDS discharges below Pennsylvania's water quality standard of
500 milligrams per liter.
West Virginia does not have a standard for TDS, which is made up of
substances such as salts that dissolve in water but remain behind when
the water evaporates. Common sources in the Monongahela River basin are
coal mine and oil and gas well operations.
Pennsylvania DEP reacted last fall by recommending temporary reliance
on bottled water for residents whose drinking water tasted foul. The
agency also ordered municipal wastewater treatment plants to accept
less gas well drilling brine until river flows rebounded in late fall.
And the agency established a TDS strategy for dischargers, effective
beginning in January 2011.
Since last fall, agency representatives and water quality scientists in
the two states have communicated regularly toward preventing another
occurrence this year.
And the problem remained at bay -- until, the Post-Gazette reported,
TDS spiked to 600 mg/L where the Monongahela River crosses from West
Virginia into Pennsylvania during a low river flow period earlier this
month.
Campbell said the West Virginia DEP has been working to identify
sources of dissolved solids in the Monongahela River.
"We know the abandoned mine drainage is significant, and also treated
mine drainage," Campbell said. "It's never been our belief that West
Virginia's TDS concentrations were in any large part tied to oil and
gas."
He noted that "half a dozen or so" private-sector mine drainage
treatment plants on the mainstem, the West Fork and Dunkard Creek, and
another 18 mine drainage sites that are treated by the state.
He also mentioned landfills, power plants and municipal treatment
plants as possible sources.
But the agency doesn't yet know how much of the TDS in the river comes
from these known sources and how much from untreated, possibly even
unidentified, mine drainage.
Because the state has no standard for TDS, there is no history of
monitoring data to help identify sources, said Dave Montali, who
coordinates stream cleanup plans for the DEP.
"We're starting with nothing," Montali said.
To begin amassing data, West Virginia DEP is rewriting existing
discharge permits to require monitoring for TDS, Montali and Campbell
said, and DEP has modified a previously planned 2009-10 tributary
monitoring effort to include TDS and related substances.
The agency also is considering proposing a water quality standard for
TDS in the 2011 Legislature, Campbell said, although there is no plan
to pursue an emergency standard.
Unhappy with these efforts, Pennsylvania DEP has initiated a process
that could result in the EPA establishing a Total Maximum Daily Load
cleanup plan. A TMDL would calculate the total amount of TDS the river
can assimilate and would limit dischargers accordingly.
Meanwhile, at a meeting scheduled Aug. 24 for California University of
Pennsylvania, state and federal regulators and scientists from the two
states will discuss the range of options.
"We could have a TMDL, we could have a West Virginia water quality
standard, we could have six facilities treat to 500 (mg/L), and the
river would be OK," Campbell said. "That's what the discussion Monday
will center around: What is the best way forward given the situation
we're in now?"