As a pair of water quality changes sought by the coal industry moves through the Legislature, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is cautioning state regulators that it believes West Virginia's standards may not be strong enough.
Late last month, EPA regional officials wrote to the state Department of Environmental Protection to raise concerns about DEP's standards for aluminum and selenium. Changes to both standards, including those in a regular update of state environmental rules, have passed the House and are pending in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
DEP's Division of Water and Waste Management proposed the changes to the way West Virginia calculates its pollution limits for aluminum and selenium in response to legislation that the West Virginia Coal Association promoted and tried to depict as a way to combat the ongoing downturn in the state's mining industry.
EPA said that the proposed aluminum changes - adopting a hardness-based equation for setting pollution limits - do not appear to sufficiently protect mussels.
"WVDEP must justify how the proposed criteria are protective of mussels in West Virginia, as well as appropriately take into consideration potential pH and hardness effects on aluminum toxicity," wrote EPA's associate director of water standards.
Regarding selenium, EPA indicated it was pleased with some changes that DEP made in West Virginia's standard, but also indicated that it has concerns about the state's current standard of 5 parts per billion. EPA said the state has "provided no data" to indicate that number is "appropriate" in all circumstances.
Last summer, dozens of coal miners, mostly from Alpha Natural Resources, turned out at a DEP public hearing to push for the water quality rule changes.
Changes to the aluminum standard were briefly blocked in 2014, when lawmakers declined to take them up in the wake of the Freedom Industries chemical spill and a brief increase in political focus on stronger environmental protections. The selenium changes have also been years in the works, and follow several major court victories and legal settlements in which citizen groups forced mining companies to clean up violations of the state's existing standard.
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.