LOUISVILLE, Ky. (AP) — A regional commission that sets water
quality standards for the Ohio River says dozens of industrial and sewage treatment plants
may not be able to meet new standards on mercury limits that are
supposed to go into effect later this year.
The Courier-Journal of Louisville reports that the Ohio River Valley Water
Sanitation Commission has sent a list of about 60 such facilities to
regulators Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Ohio and West Virginia. The
panel says current monitoring shows they may not be able to meet the
tougher standards set to begin in October.
The list published on The Courier-Journal's website lists 11 plants in
West Virginia, including 3 power plants and 4 sewage treatment plants,
including those in Parkersburg and Huntington.
Commission Director
Peter Tennant says the list was drafted as a screening tool for state
agencies and to estimate the number of requests the commission may
receive for variances.
The newspaper reports the regulatory crunch
could lead the commission to put off or change enforcement. There are
already health warnings issued on eating fish from the Ohio River due to
high levels of mercury. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says
elevated levels of the substance are of special concern in unborn babies
and young children because it can harm developing nervous systems.
In
Kentucky, regulators could fine industrial plants that don't meet the
new standard up to $25,000 per violations per day, but cases are usually
settled for much less.
Officials said facilities such as power
plants and factories may need to change how they do business, and sewage
treatment plants will need to work with customers on decreasing the
amount of mercury dumped into systems.
Tennant noted the difficulty of the task and said the commission is trying to work through possible problems.
"Do
we grant a blanket continuance to allow us to sort our way through
this? Or do we defer some and concentrate on the big ones? Anything we
do is going to be less than ideal," he said.
The leader of a Kentucky group that tracks water quality issues says the problem is serious.
"This
is a big concern," said Judy Petersen, executive director of the
Kentucky Waterways Alliance. "We are recognizing more and more the
dangers of mercury in the environment and mercury in our bodies."
Regulators
in Kentucky and Indiana said the data could be wrong or outdated, but
they will use the list to check permit requirements and to try to figure
out if variances will be needed.
"For those ones we find, looking
at updated data, we will be in contact with them to make them aware of
the situation," said Paul Higginbotham, the permitting branch chief with
the Indiana Department for Environmental Protection's Office of Water
Quality. "We will work with that company or municipality, and coordinate
with ORSANCO, to make sure Indiana's rules are complied with."
Kentucky Division of Water assistant director Peter Goodmann said his agency is taking similar actions.
"We
are going to look at this data and any other data we have to make a
determination about compliance status and what compliance challenges may
be," he said.
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