By Lauren Goldberg, Staff Attorney—
This week, the Spokane Spokesman-Review ran a story highlighting the woefully under protective toxic pollution limits in Washington. The Spokesman-Review article highlights a problem Columbia Riverkeeper is working hard to address. Through collaboration with our partners at Columbia River tribes and conservation groups, we are working to convince the Washington Department of Ecology to change its archaic toxic pollution limits—known as water quality standards—for rivers and other waterbodies. As the Spokesman-Review article explains:
From salmon and steelhead to walleye and lake trout, fish is a staple of many residents’ diets.
Yet the state’s water quality standards are based on the assumption that Washington residents eat one 7-ounce serving of fish per month, said David McBride, a toxicologist with the state Department of Health.
. . .
“The paradox of eating fish is that it provides benefits but also has risks,” McBride said last week during a meeting in Spokane. “Our current discharge standards … don’t protect you.
“Washington uses one of the lowest fish consumption rates in the nation to set water quality standards, but we have some of the highest fish-consuming populations in the nation,” he said.
The Department of Ecology, which is charged with protecting Washingtonians from water pollution, is taking steps toward adopting new toxic limits. In the meantime, Ecology is facing fierce opposition from industry groups that want to maintain the status quo. Last year, Riverkeeper and a coalition of conservation groups sent a strongly worded letter to Ecology urging the department to act swiftly to protect public health. So far, Ecology’s action has been anything but “swift.”
Ecology is in the initial stages of evaluating a new “fish consumption rate,” which could later be used to adopt new toxic pollution limits. Read Riverkeeper’s comments on the draft technical study. Nonetheless, at the request of pollution dischargers, Ecology is moving forward with rules that would make it easier to discharge pollution at levels that violate state water quality standards, including standards for toxic pollutants such as mercury and PCBs. Riverkeeper, as part of a coalition of Waterkeeper Alliance groups in Washington State, is urging Ecology to act in the public interest and stand strong against attempts to create loopholes in laws designed to protect human health and the environment. Check out Riverkeeper’s recent letter to Ecology here.
