Iowa's Water Quality Standards - Fact or Fiction?
Iowa's Water Quality Standards - Fact or Fiction?
For the most part, Iowa's Water Quality Standards (WQS) as detailed in Iowa Administrative Code (IAC) 567-61 resound with noble phrases and good intentions. In the end, however, they are just words on a page. Without proper implementation they are meaningless. Moreover, once implemented, without proper enforcement, they are worse than meaningless. They become a hoax perpetrated upon the citizens of Iowa. We read the noble words and phrases and believe that all is well, but it's not. Municipal and industrial dischargers are the "customers" and, unfortunately, Department of Natural Resources (DNR) permit writers and enforcers seem reluctant to take any action that might offend them. Here are some policies and procedures that result in reduced protection for our rivers, lakes, and streams:
"Protected flows". Almost all discharge permits in Iowa allow for "mixing zones" - regions of the stream near the discharge point where the pollution concentration can exceed acute and chronic toxicity levels. (Acute toxicity limits are based upon the mortality of representative pollution sensitive aquatic organisms; chronic toxicity limits are based upon levels causing significant growth or reproductive impairment). In the calculation of discharge limits, one key factor is the ability of the receiving stream to dilute or "assimilate" the waste. Because most dischargers are unwilling to vary their discharge with seasonal variations in the stream flow, the "design low flow" of the stream is used to calculate the dilution capacity. Most states use the 7Q10 flow of the stream (lowest 7-day average flow occurring once in 10 years) as the design low flow. Iowa uses a "protected flow" well above the 7Q10 flow for hundreds of its streams in the calculation of the dilution. In other words, there isn't always enough water to dilute the waste to safe levels. The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has already told Iowa to fix this problem. It hasn't. In fact, more streams were recently added to the protected flow list.
Triennial review. The EPA requires states to conduct a complete review of their water quality standards at least once every three years. Iowa's last completed triennial review dates back to 1990. Several explicit letters from EPA in 1997 and 1998 precipitated the current triennial review, (which was started in 1999 and is still in progress) with many of EPA's major concerns still not addressed. In fact, most the effort during this triennial review resulted in the weakening of Iowa's WQS, not strengthening them.
Interim permits. National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits must be renewed every five years. Since the ultimate goal of the Clean Water Act is "zero discharge", one would expect that with each five-year permit cycle, the amount of pollution allowed would decrease at least somewhat. We no longer seem to be headed in this direction. In 1985, after considerable research, EPA announced new toxicity information for ammonia that would ultimately require many more discharge permits to have numerical acute and chronic limits for this pollutant. Unfortunately, hundreds of smaller communities in Iowa were using a type of lagoon treatment technology that might not meet those limits without facility improvements or the use of non-discharging options. Rather than do what was necessary to get facilities in compliance, DNR began issuing large numbers of interim permits (JPEG 57 Kb) and allowing facilities to operate for years under the less protective limits of those expired permits. Although most penalties were not being imposed anyway, in an attempt to minimize reported violations, the DNR renewed hundreds of permits with "interim limits" for part of the 5-year permit cycle. Some facilities have been given permits with interim limits for 4 years and 11 months of the 5-year cycle! Almost always, the major difference is in the ammonia requirement. Usually the interim limits for ammonia are no limits at all. The practice continues unabated to this day.
Endless expired permits. Many of the facilities facing ammonia or other problems in their next permit cycle seem to have had their permit renewals put on hold for years. As long as the facility applied for the permit renewal on time, they could legally continue to operate under the old permit limits indefinitely. There are examples listed on the DNRs permit spreadsheet (http://www.iowadnr.com/water/npdes/holders.html) and confirmed on EPA's Envirofacts website (www.epa.gov/enviro/) of expired permits being used for six years or more past their renewal date!
Changed calculation procedure. In 2002, under the threat of legal action by the powerful Iowa wastewater lobby, the DNR adopted a new statistical procedure for the calculation of permit discharge limits. The new procedure allows a huge increase in ammonia and other discharge limits. Based upon calculations for eleven representative facilities (DNR information presented in 2001 to Technical Advisory Committee), recalculated chronic ammonia limits would increase by an average of 50% and acute limits by 70%.
Even with this weakening of rules, an average of over 700 facilities in Iowa exceed their permit limits every year. On average, monetary penalties for permit violations are levied against only four facilities. Many facilities report multiple violations of multiple pollutant limits. Some facilities have registered more than 50 violations over a two year period - without paying any penalties. Information compiled from the EPA's Envirofacts website was used to graph the number of facilities versus number of months in violation, for the years
2001 (JPEG 70 Kb), and
2002 (JPEG 65 Kb).
For more information about the implementation and enforcement of Iowa's standards, see: Water Quality Standards... Fact or Fiction? (PDF 1.0 Mb)