By Mike Tony, Charleston Gazette-Mail
CHARLESTON, W.Va. — Environmentalists again are rankled over West Virginia water quality standards.
The state Department of Environmental Protection is proposing updates to 35 water quality criteria to match the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2015 updates of nationally recommended criteria.
The proposed changes include a provision for evaluating human health criteria on a case-by-case basis. The West Virginia Rivers Coalition views that as a loophole for chemical manufacturers.
Human health ambient water-quality criteria represent specific levels of chemicals or conditions in a body of water that are not expected to cause adverse effects to human health, according to the EPA’s definition.
The provision would allow, as part of the water pollution permitting process, case-by-case evaluation of the total human exposure to water toxicants from ingestion of water and fish from an ambient waterbody…
