The Association filed comments earlier this week regarding the proposal from the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to add streams to the 303(d) list of impaired waters for the State of West Virginia.
EPA published a notice in the Federal Register on Monday, April 8, 2013 in which it proposed adding 255 additional stream segments to the list of impaired waters for the State of West Virginia. On March 25, 2013 EPA notified the state by letter that it was partially disapproving the state’s proposed 303(d) list of impaired waters. EPA’s partial disapproval was based on the state’s decision not to place additional streams on the list of impaired waters for biological impairment using the West Virginia Stream Condition Index (WV SCI).
The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (WV DEP) decided not to place additional streams on the list of impaired waters using the WV SCI method because of the passage of Senate Bill (SB) 562 during the 2012 Regular Session. SB 562 directed the agency to develop a new method for assessing compliance with the state’s narrative water quality standards that includes broader measurements of stream health and function than the benthic assessment contained in the WV SCI.