Search Tips
Donate Online
 
Hot Stuff
Critical Conservation Issues
Wind Position
Wind Study

 

Kansas Streams Dangerously Threatened

Kansas Senate Bill 204 and House Bill 2373 represent the current legislature's Dirty Water bills that threaten our Kansas streams.  For additional information, contact:
Yvonne Cather, Legislative Committee Chair
Charles Benjamin, Kansas Chapter Attorney and Lobbyist

Date Posted
Link Description
September 17, 2002 How SB 204 (The Dirty Water Bill) is inconsistent with state and federal law
September 1, 2002 Update: KDHE Sets Public Hearings On Regulations To Implement SB 204—The Dirty Water Bill
January 30, 2002 Summary of 204 by Charles Benjamin with Petition to Secretary of Health and Environment
February 15, 2001 Testimony by Charles Benjamin Before the Kansas House Environment Committee
March 2, 2001 Testimony for Substitute for SB 204 for the Senate Natural Resources Committee by Clyde Graeber, Secretary

 

Substitute for Senate Bill 204 - A Step Backwards for Cleaning Up Kansas Rivers
By Charles M. Benjamin, Ph.D., J.D.
Attorney at Law and Legislative Coordinator
Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club

SB 204, passed by the Kansas legislature and signed by the Kansas Governor in 2001, basically does two things. The first thing it does is set up a regime to "declassify" streams in Kansas. At a minimum a stream in Kansas would not be a stream unless it had a ten-year median stream flow equal to or in excess of 1 cubic foot per second.

For those streams that DO NOT meet this minimum stream flow requirement KDHE must determine, by December 31, 2005, if threatened and endangered aquatic species actually exist and/or that pooling of water during periods of zero flow provide important refuges for aquatic life and permits biological recolonization in intermittently flowing segments. In addition KDHE must conduct a cost/benefit analyses taking into account the economic and social impact of classifying stream segments. These analyses must indicate that the benefits of classifying these stream segments outweigh the costs of classifying the stream segments (as consistent with the Clean Water Act and federal regulations). The exception to these requirements would be at a point of discharge on a stream segment and downstream from where KDHE has issued an NPDES permit - however, this would NOT include NPDES permits for confined animal feeding operations.

Ephemeral streams, grass, vegetative or other waterways, culverts, or ditches, unless they had an NPDES point source discharger, would NOT be classified as stream segments. This is in spite of the fact that Federal courts have consistently said that even "dry arroyos" are "waters of the United States for purposes of the Clean Water Act."

The bill requires KDHE to conduct Use Attainability Analyses on almost every stream in Kansas by Oct. 31, 2005. The purpose of these UAAs is to determine if the stream segments CAN support a contact recreation designation. This, incidentally, runs counter to EPA's interpretation of the Clean Water Act that requires the state to show that stream segments CANNOT support primary contact recreation criteria.

The second part of SB 204 would establish two subcategories for recreational uses of the state's waters - primary and secondary contact recreation. Primary contact recreation use would be use of a classified stream segment for recreation during the period from April 1 through Oct. 31 - PROVIDED that the segment is open to and accessible by the public, is capable of supporting the recreational activities where the body is intended to be immersed in surface water to the extent that some inadvertent ingestion of water is probable. Secondary contact recreation use would be use of a classified stream segment for recreation if the segment by law or written permission of the landowner is open to and accessible by the public and is capable of supporting the recreational activities of wading or fishing where the body is not intended to be immersed and where ingestion is not probable. However, the KDHE Secretary is NOT REQUIRED to designate the use of any classified stream segment as secondary contact recreation.

On November 8, 2001, a coalition of Kansas environmental groups presented a petition to KDHE Secretary Graeber expressing concerns about SB 204. That petition essentially deals with the second part of SB 204 - not the first part. That is because the first part of SB 204 -the declassification process (i.e. eliminating stream segments) - will take several years to complete because of the requirements to gather data on stream flow and the existence of threatened and endangered species. What we are concerned about immediately is the opportunity provided to individual riparian landowners to lower the stream DESIGNATIONS from primary to secondary simply by limiting access to their land

Petition to the Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment
November 8, 2001
Topeka, Kansas

  • Whereas, the Kansas legislature has mandated that the waters of the state belong to the people of the state (K.S.A. 82a-702) rather than to specific property owners; and
  • Whereas, S.B. 204, passed by the Kansas Legislature and signed by the Governor, declassifies stream segments and provides property owners the sole authority to dictate, without public input and in apparent violation of 40 C.F.R. 131.10(e) and 131.20(b), the restriction of contact recreational uses of the waters of the state and the corresponding public protection of public health through denial of public access; and
  • Whereas, establishing or determining the designation for primary or secondary contact recreation using public access as a criteria is inconsistent with federal regulations under 40 C.F.R. 131.10(g) which does not explicitly identify public access as a reason for changing a designated use of a stream; and
  • Whereas, the establishment of recreational uses is the minimum base standard and the only process available to the Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) to oversee biological contamination including fecal coliform and thus protect public health; and
  • Whereas, the declassification of stream segments will result in no protection for human exposure in the stream segments and no applicable limits or goals for exposure to biological contaminants for all streams removed from the stream register; and
  • Whereas, federal regulation on designated uses for streams, found at 40 C.F.R. 131.10(b), requires a consideration of downstream uses and provision for the maintenance of those uses; and
  • Whereas, the substantive requirement in S.B. 204 of weighing the economic, social and regulatory cost of proposed classification of a stream segment against the benefit of protecting the quality of surface water in a stream segment for the general public and environment is very difficult if not impossible to determine; and
  • Whereas, the language in S.B. 204 regarding cost benefit analysis is inconsistent with federal regulations on use designations found at 40 C.F.R. 131.10(g)(6); and
  • Whereas, members of the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club, the Kansas Wildlife Federation, the Friends of the Kaw, the Arkansas River Coalition, the Kansas Natural Resource Council, the Kansas State Nurses' Association as well as members of the general public in Kansas will be negatively affected by a weakening in water quality protections in Kansas as a result of the provisions of S.B. 204 which went into effect September 1, 2001.

The aforementioned organizations hereby petition the Kansas Secretary of Health and Environment to use the discretionary authority provided him under the provisions of Section 8(1) of S.B. 204 and refuse to implement subsection (c)(7)(A)(ii)(b) of Section 1, and amendments thereto, on any stream segment currently designated for primary contact recreation because the criteria of public access is not permissible grounds to change the stream designations under the federal Clean Water Act.

Respectfully submitted to Secretary Clyde Graeber at his offices at the Kansas Department of Health and Environment in Topeka, Kansas on November 8, 2001:

J. Scott Smith, Chair, Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club

Tommie Berger, President, Kansas Wildlife Federation

Dave Murphy, Friends of the Kaw/Kansas Riverkeeper

DeEtte Huffman, President, Arkansas River Coalition

Terri Roberts, Executive Director, Kansas State Nurses'Association

Bob Haughawout, President, Kansas Natural Resource Council

Back to top of Streams

 

 

February15, 2001
Testimony Before the Kansas House Environment Committee

In Opposition to H.B. 2373 - On Behalf of the Kansas Chapter of Sierra Club Madam Chairman, members of the Committee, thank you for giving me the opportunity to testify in opposition to H.B. 2373.  This bill will:        Eliminate all protection from many important Kansas streams.

  • Eliminate protection of surface waters and aquifers for use as drinking water.
  • Eliminate protection of lakes and wetlands.
  • Eliminate any protection of aquatic life.
  • Create an inevitable legal clash with EPA.
Do You Need to Pass This Legislation?

Section 303(c)(1) requires that “the Governor of a State or the State water pollution control agency of such State shall from time to time (but at least once each three year period beginning with the date of enactment of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972) hold public hearings for the purpose of reviewing applicable water quality standards and, as appropriate, modifying and adopting standards.  Results of such review shall be made available to the Administrator (of EPA).”

In plain language the Clean Water Act provides a procedure for reviewing the state’s water quality standards that is binding on this state.  It is called a triennial review of water quality and it is required of all states under the federal Clean Water Act.  Every state is required to completely review and, if necessary, update their water quality standards at least every three years.  In the past, that process in Kansas has been conducted by KDHE over many months while allowing for input by all stakeholders, including the scientific and public health community.  

Kansas is due for another triennial review of its water quality standards in 2002.  Wouldn’t it be better for all Kansans if the proposals contained in this legislation were considered in an open public process over several months rather than in a legislative hearing where you are under time pressures to consider many different bills and issues?  Many Kansans will be impacted by the dramatic change in water quality standards proposed in this bill.  All who are affected should have an opportunity for input and good science should be applied to this process rather than politics.

Is it Legal for the State Legislature to Change the State’s Water Quality Standards?

As you can see from the plain language of the Clean Water Act quoted above, Congress intended for the Governor, or the states pollution control agency, to set water quality standards.  Nowhere in the Clean Water Act does it mention that state legislatures should set water quality standards.  Congress clearly intended for the setting of water quality standards to be a state administrative process, not a legislative process.  Proponents of this bill will tell you that a few state legislatures have made changes to their water quality standards.  However, it is important that you examine very carefully what those other states have actually done.  To my knowledge, wholesale changes in stream designations by the state legislature, as proposed in H.B. 2373, have not occurred anywhere else.   And even if they have, it does not make it legal.  It only means no one has challenged it in court.  By passing this legislation you are putting the state of Kansas into direct conflict with federal law.  Are you sure the taxpayers of the state want to pay the legal fees to try to uphold a law that on its face is of questionable validity?

Why is the EPA proposing to designate 1400 water bodies in Kansas for “primary contact recreation?

Section 101(a)(2) of the Clean Water Act establishes the national goal of “water quality which provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife and …recreation in and on the water, wherever attainable”.  This national goal is commonly referred to as the “fishable/swimmable” goal of the Clean Water Act.  Section 303(c)(2)(A) requires State water quality standards to “protect the public health and welfare, enhance the quality of water, and serve the purposes of this Act.” 

EPA’s regulations, found at 40 CFR Part 131, interpret and implement these CWA provisions by requiring that water quality standards provide for Clean Water Act section 101(a) goals uses unless those uses have been shown to be unattainable.  These EPA regulations are legally binding upon states because they have been adopted pursuant to the federal Administrative Procedures Act, have the force of law and override any state law to the contrary.  These regulations create a “rebuttable presumption” that all the waters of a state that are regulated under the Clean Water Act are to be designated “fishable/swimmable” unless the state proves otherwise.

The mechanism in EPA’s regulations used to rebut this presumption is a “use attainability analysis.”   Under 40 CFR 131.10(j) states are required to conduct a “use attainability analysis” (UAA) whenever the state designates or has designated uses that do not include the CWA Section 101(a) goal uses, or when the state wishes to remove CWA section 101(a) goal uses, or when the state adopts subcategories of uses that require less stringent criteria. 

A UAA is defined in 40 CFR 131.3(g) as a “structured scientific assessment of the factors affecting the attainment of the use which may include physical, chemical, biological, and economic factors.”  In a UAA, the physical, chemical and biological factors affecting the attainment of a use are evaluated through a water body survey and assessment.

This rebuttable presumption approach is designed to preserve the state’s paramount role in establishing water quality standards in weighing any available evidence regarding the attainable uses of a particular water body.  The rebuttable presumption approach does not restrict the discretion that states have to determine that CWA section 101(a) goal uses are not, in fact, attainable in a particular case.  Rather, if the water quality goals articulated by Congress are not to be met in a particular water body, the regulations simply require that such a determination be based upon a credible “structured scientific assessment” of use attainability.

Since the early 1980’s EPA has identified the State’s lack of justification for waters not designated with Section 101(a) goal uses, particularly primary contact recreation, as a significant issue that the State has failed to address.  Nevertheless, as part of its 1998 approval action, EPA approved over 300 revised use designations as a result of use attainability analyses that were submitted by KDHE.  However, Kansas did not include supporting use attainability analyses for all the surface waters that the State did not designate for primary contact recreation.  EPA therefore disapproved those use designations as being inconsistent with 40 CFR 131.10(g).

In plain language, Congress intended for all “waters of the United States” to be “fishable/swimmable.”  The reason is to prevent states from conducting exactly the kind of wholesale categorization of waters in the state that is proposed in H.B. 2373.  This presumption can be rebutted by a state for any given water body by carrying out a use attainability analysis (UAA).  Since, 1980 Kansas has been out of compliance with this section of the Clean Water Act.  KDHE is aware of this fact and has developed a protocol for conducting these UAAs. 

What Should the Legislature Do About Water Quality Standards?

        You should follow the dictates of the Clean Water Act, which is legally binding upon the state of Kansas.  Kansas signed a memorandum of understanding with EPA approximately 25 years ago, whereby the state agreed to carry out the Clean Water Act on behalf of the federal government in return for receiving millions of dollars of federal funds every year.  Currently, over 80% of KHDE’s budget comes from transfers from the federal government through EPA.

There is already a citizen complaint filed with EPA requesting withdrawal of this state’s authority to carry out the Clean Water Act and issue permits.  That is because the Kansas Supreme Court, in an opinion issued last spring, cited Kansas’ failure to comply with certain provisions of federal regulations allowing for direct judicial appeals in state district court of permits issued by KDHE.  The KDHE Secretary asked the legislature to remedy that situation last year but the legislature refused to act.  EPA is currently reviewing the state’s compliance with the Clean Water Act. 

Similarly, the EPA expected the state legislature, in 1991, to remedy the lack of compliance with the Clean Water Act on the so-called private ponds issue, whereby individuals whose private ponds are polluted by someone else have no remedy in state law and must pursue private tort actions.  The legislature again failed to act.  Now you have a bill before you that would reclassify hundreds of water bodies in this state in clear violation of the Clean Water Act. 

Some of you may hope the new administration won’t act to sanction the state if the legislature passes legislation like H.B. 2373 that is so clearly in violation of the Clean Water Act.  Section 505(a)(2) of the Clean Water Act states that “any citizen may commence a civil action on his own behalf against the Administrator where there is alleged a failure of the Administrator to perform any act or duty under this Act which is not discretionary with the Administrator.” 

The fact is that the EPA Administrator has failed in the past to perform her non-discretionary duty to require the state of Kansas to carry out duties the state agreed to over twenty-five years ago.  The state of Kansas and EPA failed to set TMDLs for impaired streams for over twenty years.   The Kansas Sierra Club and KNRC had to file suit in federal court that resulted in a schedule of compliance that is now being carried out. 

For twenty years, Kansas has failed to justify setting less than a primary contact recreation designation for some 1400 water bodies and EPA failed to act.  For a decade, Kansas has refused to put itself into compliance with the private ponds rules that are the law in 47 other states and EPA failed to act.  Again, Sierra Club and KNRC had to go to federal court and obtain a consent decree whereby EPA is finally promulgating those rules the state refuses to comply with.

No one takes pleasure in filing lawsuits.  And if you think I am getting rich from them, think again.  I made just a little over $2600 from the settlement of the last lawsuit with EPA.  That won’t make many mortgage payments.  Congress gave the citizens of the United States the opportunity, and the duty, to bring a civil suit in U.S. District court when the EPA Administrator fails to carry out the Clean Water Act.  My clients in the Kansas Sierra Club have filed these lawsuits only as a last resort.  In every case the EPA was out of compliance with the Clean Water Act for many years.  The members of the Kansas Sierra Club believe that environmental laws of the United States apply to Kansas and they intend to continue seeing to it that those laws are fully carried out in Kansas.

Thank you for your time and attention.  I would be happy to respond to any questions.

Back to top of Streams

 

Testimony for Substitute for SB 204
for the Senate Natural Resources Committee
by Clyde Graeber, Secretary
March 2, 2001

The original of SB 204, as described by the proponents, was designed to address the changes that KDHE made to the Surface Water Register in 1994, when streams were added for protection, some of which are dry. However the current form of this bill goes well beyond those 1994 additions and rather than addressing the removal of those "dry" streams through our current existing processes, oversteps the original intent of the bill.  It now mandates that KDHE re-evaluate all of the stream segments, not merely those added in 1994, as well as eliminating protection for some steams that are not normally dry.

There has been a lot of discussion about the recreational use designation(s). Little emphasis has been placed on its public health purpose.  The current standard for recreational use addresses only a baseline sanitary condition.  This bill eliminates even that baseline condition for many streams.

KDHE has been delegated through the Clean Water Act the role of protecting the waters of the state for the citizens of the state.  That role of protection for all occasionally puts us at odds with specific interests.  Perhaps errors were made in 1994 by KDHE’s attempt to provide at least a minimum level of protection for steam segments; however KDHE currently has a process to address those dry stream segments and is ready and willing to do so.

Therefore KDHE cannot support SB 204.  We think it is unnecessary since it establishes an entirely new statutory framework instead of working through the existing regulatory processes to establish the proper listings.  This new framework represents an environmental step backward and conflicts with federal regulations.

Since 1945, the legislature has consistently mandated that the waters of the state belong to the people of the state (K.SA. 82a-702) rather than to a specific property owner.  This is because water, unlike the land it flows through, does not stay put, but moves across property lines, state lines, and even international borders.  We all own the waters of the state, even if located on private property and must all, work together to protect them.

Back to top of Streams

 

KDHE Sets Public Hearings On Regulations To Implement SB 204—The Dirty Water Bill

The Kansas Department of Health and Environment (KDHE) has announced that public hearings will be held at three locations in September 2002. The purpose is to receive public comments on rules and regulations to implement Substitute for Senate Bill 204 (SB 204)— passed by the Kansas Legislature and signed by Governor Graves in 2001. Public comments received by KDHE at these hearings and by mail will be considered in KDHE’s final draft of the regulations before they are submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) for their consideration. The comments will also be forwarded to EPA for their consideration. EPA has authority under the federal Clean Water Act (Act) to determine if proposed state regulations to implement the Act are consistent with the Act. If EPA determines that state regulations are incon-sistent with the Act, then EPA must “promulgate” regula-tions to take the place of disapproved state regulations.

The dates for these hearings are:
Sept. 4, 7 p.m., Fort Hays State University Memorial Union, Fort Hays Ballroom
Sept. 5, 7 p.m. Dodge City Community College Student Union Building, Santa Fe Room
Sept. 10, 7 p.m., Topeka Memorial Hall Auditorium 120 S.W. 10th Ave

Public comments will be limited to five minutes. A “public availability session” will be conducted from 3–5 p.m. prior to each public hearing. The public will have an opportunity to review the findings of Use Attainability Analysis (UAA) from which designated uses were estab-lished. Written comments may be submitted to:

Ricquelle Landis
KDHE
Bureau of Environmental Field Services
1000 S.W. Jackson, Suite 430
Topeka, KS 66612-1367

Copies of the proposed regulations can be obtained from KDHE, call 785-296-6603. Questions related to the proposed regulations should be directed to Craig Thompson at KDHE, call 785-296-5569. The draft regulations are available online at KDHE’s Web site http://www.kdhe.state.ks.us/befs.

What is SB 204?
In 2001 the Kansas Legislature passed and Governor Graves signed Substitute for Senate Bill 204. The Kansas Livestock Association and its legislative director Allie Devine (a former Secretary of Agriculture in the Graves Administration) wrote and promoted SB 204. The Kansas Farm Bureau and other Kansas agricultural organizations actively supported the bill. Senator Robert Tyson (R-Parker) and Senator Janis Lee (D-Kensington) were the bill’s principal legislative sponsors. KDHE Secretary Clyde Graeber actively opposed SB 204 but was ignored by a majority of Kansas’ legislators and Governor Graves.

The purpose of SB 204 is to weaken protections of the Clean Water Act in Kansas through a two-fold process of:

  1. “declassifying” streams (i.e., making it more difficult for a stream to qualify for Clean Water Act protections) and
  2. removing primary contact recreation designations from streams by allowing riparian landowners to dictate stream designation based upon access to streams.

Under SB 204 a stream in Kansas would not be a stream unless it had a ten-year median stream flow equal to or in excess of 1 cubic foot per second. For those streams that do not meet this minimum stream flow requirement, KDHE must determine, by Dec. 31, 2005, if threatened and endangered aquatic species actually exist and/or that pooling of water during periods of zero flow provide important refuges for aquatic life and permits bio-logical re-colonization in intermittently flowing segments. If those conditions do exist in the stream, KDHE must then conduct a cost/benefit analysis taking into account the economic and social impact of classifying the stream segment for primary contact recreation. This analysis must indicate that the benefits of classifying these stream segments outweigh the costs of classifying the stream segments. The only exception to these requirements would be at a point of discharge on a stream segment and downstream from where KDHE has issued an NPDES permit. However, this would not include NPDES permits for confined animal feeding operations.

Ephemeral streams, grass, vegetative or other water-ways, culverts or ditches, (unless they had an NPDES point source discharge) would not be classified as stream segments. Federal courts have consistently said that these types of waterways were intended by Congress to be “waters of the United States” for purposes of Clean Water Act protections.

Under current law there are two sub-categories for recreational uses of the state’s waters—primary and secondary contact recreation. A primary contact recreation designation means that a stream is only allowed to have one-tenth the amount of fecal coliform bacteria of a secondary contact recreation stream during the “recreation period” of April 1 through Oct. 31. SB 204 adds provisions that the segment can be classified as primary contact only if it is open to and accessible by the public and is capable of supporting the recreational activities where the body is intended to be immersed in surface water to the extent that some inad-vertent ingestion of water is probable. SB 204 makes secondary contact recreation use of a classified stream segment for recreation if the segment by law or written permission of the landowner is open to and accessible by the public and is capable of supporting the recreational activities of wading or fishing where the body is not intended to be immersed and where ingestion is not probable.

SB 204 requires KDHE to conduct UAA on almost every stream in Kansas by Oct. 31, 2005. The purpose of these UAAs is to determine if the stream segments CAN support a primary contact recreation designation. The use of UAAs in this manner runs counter to EPA’s interpreta-tion of the Clean Water Act that requires the state to show that stream segments cannot support primary contact recreation criteria.

How SB 204 is inconsistent with state and federal law
The Kansas legislature (KSA 82a-702) has mandated that the waters of the state belong to the people of the state rather than to specific property owners. SB 204 declassifies stream segments and provides property owners the sole authority to dictate, without public input and in apparent violation of 40 CFR 131.10(e) and 131.20(b). Establishing or determining the designation for primary or secondary contact recreation using public access as a criteria is incon-sistent with federal regulations under 40 CFR 131.10(g) which does not explicitly identify public access as a reason for changing a designated use of a stream. The estab-lishment of recre-ational uses is the minimum base stan-dard. It is the only process available to KDHE to oversee bio-logical contamination, includ-ing fecal coliform, and thus protect public health. The declassification of stream segments will result in no protection for human exposure in the stream segments and no applicable limits or goals for exposure to biological contaminants for all streams removed from the stream register. Federal regulation on designated uses for streams, found at 40 CFR 131.10(b), requires a consideration of downstream uses and provision for the maintenance of those uses. The requirement in SB 204 of weighing the economic, social and regulatory cost of proposed classification of a stream segment, against the benefit of protecting the quality of surface water in a stream segment for the gen-eral public and the environment, is very difficult if not impossible to determine. The language in SB 204 regarding cost benefit analysis is inconsistent with federal regula-tions on use designations found at 40 CFR 131.10(g)(6).

For further information about how you can participate in the hearings and send in comments to KDHE and EPA on regulations to implement SB 204, the Dirty Water Bill, check the Planet Kansas Web site at www.kssierra.org.

Charles Benjamin
Legislative Coordinator
cmbenjamin@msn.com
785-841-5902

Back to top of Streams

 

How SB 204 (The Dirty Water Bill) is inconsistent with state and federal law

Statement on behalf of the Kansas Chapter of the Sierra Club
Hearing by the Kansas Department of Health and Environment
To Consider Proposed Revisions to Kansas Surface Water Quality Standards, K.A.R. 28-16-28b through K.A.R. 28-16-28e
To Implement Substitute for S.B. 204 from the 2001 Kansas Legislature

September 10, 2002
Memorial Hall Auditorium, 120 S.W. 10th Avenue
Topeka, Kansas

The Kansas legislature (K.S.A. 82a-702) has mandated that the waters of the state belong to the people of the state rather than to specific property owners.

S.B. 204 declassifies stream segments and provides property owners the sole authority to dictate, without public input and in apparent violation of 40 C.F.R. 131.10(e) and 131.20(b).

Establishing or determining the designation for primary or secondary contact recreation using public access as a criteria is inconsistent with federal regulations under 40 C.F.R. 131.10(g) which does not explicitly identify public access as a reason for changing a designated use of a stream.

The establishment of recreational uses is the minimum base standard and the only process available to KDHE to oversee biological contamination, including fecal coliform, and thus protect public health. The declassification of stream segments will result in no protection for human exposure in the stream segments and no applicable limits or goals for exposure to biological contaminants for all streams removed from the stream register.

Federal regulation on designated uses for streams, found at 40 C.F.R. 131.10(b), requires a consideration of downstream uses and provision for the maintenance of those uses. The requirement in S.B. 204 of weighing the economic, social and regulatory cost of proposed classification of a stream segment against the benefit of protecting the quality of surface water in a stream segment for the general public and the environment is very difficult if not impossible to determine.

The language in S.B. 204 regarding cost benefit analysis is inconsistent with federal regulations on use designations found at 40 C.F.R. 131.10(g)(6).

Thank you for your consideration of these comments.

Please pass these comments along to E.P.A. Region 7 for their consideration of these proposed rules and regulations.

Charles M. Benjamin, Ph.D., J.D.
cmbenjamin@msn.com

Back to top of Streams

 
Facebook Twitter Email Real Time Web Analytics