Latest News, WV Press Videos

W.Va. lawmakers decline to reduce water protections

CHARLESTON, W.Va. — West Virginia lawmakers on Monday rejected a proposal to eliminate the current policy that aims to protect all rivers and streams statewide as potential drinking water sources.

Members of the Joint Legislative Rule-Making Review Committee turned down on a voice vote a proposal that would have allowed the state Department of Environmental Protection to enforce drinking water standards only at the specific locations of existing drinking water intakes and in stream segments that run 500 yards upstream from those intakes.

Currently, unless a specific waterway is exempted, the DEP applies water quality standards meant to protect drinking water to all streams across West Virginia, whether they have drinking water intakes on them or not.

Delegate Meshea Poore, D-Kanawha, warned that the proposal — long sought by various state industry lobby groups — would reverse progress made in protecting West Virginia’s water resources since last January’s Freedom Industries chemical leak.

“This is gutting the protections we currently have,” Poore said.

Under current rules, all waterways are designated for different uses, such as drinking, fishing and contact recreation, like swimming. Different water quality limits are set, based on the designated uses of a particular waterway. The designated use for drinking water is known as “Category A.” Those water quality limits, in turn, are used to establish pollution discharge limits in permits issued to state businesses.

During a committee meeting Monday afternoon, Delegate Justin Marcum, D-Mingo, proposed eliminating the statewide application of Category A to cure what he said was a “very overbroad” policy…

Comments are closed.

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

Subscribe to Our Newsletter

And get our latest content in your inbox

Invalid email address