A coalition of construction unions is again taking up the fight against what it says is an effort to weaken West Virginia's water quality standards.
The Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation - which defeated what it called the "Cancer Creek" bill more than two decades ago - is urging the state Department of Environmental Protection to abandon its proposal to change the way agency officials calculate water pollution limits for cancer-causing chemicals.
"We opposed it then, and we're opposing it now," said Steve White, director of the ACT Foundation, the research, advertising and public relations arm of the West Virginia State Building and Construction Trades Council.
Last week, the DEP proposal drew about three dozen people to a public hearing in Charleston. No one spoke in favor of the change proposed by the DEP Division of Water and Waste Management.
Representatives of the ACT Foundation did not attend the public hearing, but they submitted written comments to DEP to make clear their opposition to the proposal.
"This is the same fight we had 20-some years ago," White said Friday. "There's no good reason to lessen the protections we have for our water."
Among other things, the ACT Foundation comments, prepared by the consulting firm Carpenter Environmental Associates, said that DEP officials have "not adequately investigated the impact" of the rule change on rivers and streams across West Virginia.
"The effect of the rule change on our rivers has not been determined," the ACT Foundation comments stated.
At issue is one of several changes that the DEP proposed to make as part of the agency's federally required triennial review of water quality standards. The standards set pollution limits and are used in establishing the pollution discharges companies are allowed to make under Clean Water Act permits issued by the DEP.
The change in question would calculate water pollution limits for cancer-causing chemicals using an average flow figure - called the "harmonic mean" - rather than the state's current practice of using a low-flow figure, a change that would allow more carcinogens to be discharged. The state currently uses a flow referred to as "7Q10," which is the lowest seven-day consecutive flow that occurs at least once every 10 years.
DEP Secretary Randy Huffman has said that the changes are reasonable, will not reduce public health protections, and are consistent with U.S. Environmental Protection Agency guidance and legislative mandates that his agency re-examine the water quality standards at issue. At least two industry trade associations, the West Virginia Chamber of Commerce and the West Virginia Manufacturers Association, had previously urged DEP to adopt harmonic mean instead of 7Q10.
In its written comments, the ACT Foundation said that the harmonic mean is always greater than the 7Q10 flow for a particular stream, meaning that "the adoption of the harmonic mean flow ... necessarily results in an increase in the amount of cancer-causing chemicals allowed in all rivers and streams. The state must determine the magnitude of the increase in each river and stream in order to make a fully informed decision."
The harmonic mean issue first emerged in the early 1990s, when then-Gov. Gaston Caperton's administration proposed it as part of their plan to lure a $1 billion pulp and paper mill to Apple Grove in Mason County. At the time, the Affiliated Construction Trades Foundation, which feared the mill would be built with non-union labor, joined with environmental groups in fighting the rule change. The ACT Foundation funded an ad campaign that referred to the rule change as the "Cancer Creek" bill. Eventually, a committee formed by Caperton and legislative leaders to sort out the matter rejected the move to harmonic mean.
In its new written comments, the ACT Foundation says that DEP should provide state residents with estimates of the potential increased cancer risks that could come with a switch to the harmonic mean.
"The increased cancer risk, which would result by establishing harmonic mean flow as the design flow, can and must be determined before allowing such a change," the ACT Foundation said. "We believe that the use of harmonic mean flow as the critical stream flow for carcinogens should not be allowed until it is fully investigated and the Legislature determines that the increased cancer risk to the citizens of West Virginia is acceptable."
Reach Ken Ward Jr. at kward@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-1702 or follow @kenwardjr on Twitter.