State Seeking Input on Pollution in Watershed

Comment period still flowing for Cheat River

Morgantown Dominion Post
16 August 2010
By Michelle Wolford

KINGWOOD — The state Department of Environmental Protection has unveiled its “pollution budget” of Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDL) for select streams in the Cheat River watershed.

TMDLs are a pollution budget, or formula, for how much of what material can go into a stream while remaining in compliance with water quality standards, the DEP’s Jim Laine told those gathered at Camp Dawson’s Armed Forces Reserve Center in Kingwood earlier this month. The budget also provides a basis for required action to restore water quality.

“The comment period is part of the protocol — they have to open it for public comment. But the information is complicated,” said Friends of the Cheat Executive Director Amanda Pitzer.

“The person who doesn’t regularly look at stream data won’t have any real basis for comment,” Pitzer explained. “They won’t know if it looks right or wrong. But people who work with water quality will have an idea and we’d like them to look at the report and comment on its accuracy.

“The report really impacts how we get money for stream cleanup — we have data from the Department of Environmental Protection that says, ‘These streams are impaired.’ ”

The DEP’s draft report deals with 99 impaired main streams in the Cheat River watershed. Each waterway may be impacted differently. For example, the TMDL for Pringle Run, off the Cheat River between Preston and Rowlesburg, calls for a 93 percent decrease in aluminum deposits — or 17 pounds per day. The TMDL for Cheat River calls for a 39 percent reduction in iron — or 12,547 pounds per day.

The report does not include Shavers Fork, Dry Fork or the Blackwater River above Beaver Creek. Some Pennsylvania tributaries in the Big Sandy Creek watershed were also omitted.

Focus is water quality

There are at least 1,000 streams in the Cheat watershed, according to the DEP’s Lou Schmidt. The DEP defines a body of water as impaired if it violates water quality standards and does not meet its designated uses. A stream’s use may be water contact recreation, propagation and maintenance of fish and other aquatic life, or public water supply.

The report, according to Laine, “is the DEP saying, if you want to fix [a stream], this is how much you have to reduce [pollutants] to make that happen.”

Dave Montali of the DEP said the TMDLs are not new water quality standards and have no new regulatory authority.

The federal Clean Water Act requires that states develop lists of impaired waters and establish TMDLs for each of them. TMDLs are being developed for fecal coliform bacteria, aluminum, iron, manganese, pH and biological impairments for selected streams.

Biological impairments identified come from mine drainage, untreated sewage and sediment, according to the report.

“They’re just compiling and analyzing data,” said Pitzer of the watershed cleanup organization that assisted the DEP in compiling information for the report.

The data are used to determine the current amount of pollution entering Cheat waters and reductions necessary to meet water quality standards.

Water quality standards are in place from the federal Clean Water Act. TMDLs, Pitzer said, are being revised “to account for current land uses and to make suggestions on pollution reductions necessary to clean up streams already in violation of water quality standards.”

The project was a collaborative effort between the federal Environmental Protection Agency and the DEP. Additional source tracking support was also provided by Friends of Cheat. The association was approached because of its extensive background and knowledge of the area’s tributaries and acid mine drainage source locations.

DRAFT REPORT COMMENTS

Written comments on the draft report of Total Maximum Daily Loads for the Cheat River watershed may be submitted by mail or email. The preferred form for comment submissions is email or disk in order to expedite the review and response process. Written comments should be postmarked no later than Aug. 23 to: Steve Young, WV Department of Environmental Protection, 601 57th St., Charleston, WV 25304; or by e-mail to stephen.a. young@wv.gov.