Facing pressure from federal regulators, Governor Jay Inslee has directed state officials to take another stab at updating clean water rules, tied partly to how much fish people eat.
Washington’s current standards are out of compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. So, last month the Environmental Protection Agency put forward draft rules that will become final in less than a year, unless the state comes up with their own rules.
Inslee says the state needs to take charge of its own destiny with rules that will be less costly and more manageable, but still meet EPA approval.
“Because frankly, the federal rule does not provide flexibility. The federal rule would require things that frankly I don’t think are achievable by our businesses today,” said Inslee. “The science does not exist to remove some of these chemicals from some of this water.”
He says the state’s new rule will include a fish consumption rate equal to Oregon’s limit of 175 grams per person per day and a cancer risk rate of one per million.
Those are the same rates put forward in the federal rule. But the state rule would have more flexible timelines on implementation and might exempt legacy pollutants such as PCBs and mercury from discharge permits.
Environmental watchdogs say giving polluters more than a decade to comply would be too lenient and would not lead to effective cleanup of the state’s waterways. Chris Wilke is with the Puget Soundkeeper Alliance.
“What would stop [the state] Department of Ecology under this rule from issuing a 50-year compliance schedule? That’s a couple generations of folks that will have to continue to eat fish that are poisoned with toxic pollution,” Wilke said.
Ecology says it will begin drafting the new rule immediately and make it available for public comment early next year.
