By KATE MISHKIN
Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON,W.Va. — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has given the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection the green light to regulate the way the state enforces water pollution permit limits.
House Bill 2506 passed in last year’s legislative session and requires the state to use an average flow, known as the “harmonic mean flow” to calculate water quality, as opposed to a more conservative low-flow system that the state used for years. The bill authorized the DEP to enforce those standards.
The EPA’s action allows the state to adopt language similar to an earlier proposal that had been dubbed the “Cancer Creek Bill.” That bill was first discussed in the Legislature decades ago, because it could potentially increase the discharge of toxic chemicals into West Virginia’s waterways. The bill was signed into law April 8, 2017. Advocates of the law argued that it would create new jobs.
Read the entire article: https://www.wvgazettemail.com/news/politics/epa-paves-way-for-wv-dep-to-enforce-state-water/article_2e68aebe-ec11-5625-a3d9-62167b26f117.html
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