SierraScape February - March 2008
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by Ken Midkiff
Osage Group Conservation Chair
The federal Clean Water Act states, right up front, that "It is the national goal that, wherever attainable, an interim goal of water quality which provides for the protection and propagation for fish, shellfish and wildlife and provides for recreation in and on the water be achieved by July 1, 1983".
Disregarding for the moment that 1983 was about 24 years ago and our state is just now getting around to acknowledging this, and that, by most estimates, only about 60% of the waters in this state support fisheries or water recreation, it is the phrase "where attainable" that those who view the streams and rivers of this state as a convenient place to dump stuff have glommed onto.
The US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) also noted that "where attainable" language, and came up with the criteria for determining how the "recreation in and on the water" goal could be removed. Since something cannot be removed until it has been placed, by default every stream, river, and lake in this state are, legally, designated "supportive of aquatic life" and capable of "whole body contact". The EPA calls the criteria a "Use Attainability Analysis" and no waterbody may be removed unless such an analysis has been conducted, and there is a finding that the national goals cannot be attained.
In true bureaucratic fashion, much of the determination of how to meet the Use Attainability Analysis was left up to the states. A court order obtained by the Missouri Coalition for the Environment required that the Missouri Clean Water Commission (CWC) designate all waterbodies as "Whole Body Contact" (or Recreation In and On the Water). That was done, but now the CWC seems to be intent on removing as many streams as possible from the designation "whole body contact", even though the EPA as the final arbiter disapproved many (99 out of 145) streams that the Clean Water Commission had removed from the "whole body contact" category.
The hedge that both the CWC and the EPA fall back on is how the State defines "depth". According to the protocol approved by the CWC, a stream must contain at least one hole that is one meter (3.28 feet) or it must average one-half meter overall.
That's a fairly good definition of how deep a pool must be to swim in, but a fairly lousy definition of "whole body contact" (WBC). Certainly, someone with a large belly could not be completely immersed in less that one meter of water; but there are many lean people and young children who could be totally submerged in, say, six inches of water.
The short version of this is if the pool - say in the River Des Peres - where you, your children, or your grandchildren go to cool off on a hot summer day isn't one meter deep, the stream will be removed from the "whole body contact" list and polluting industries and sewage treatment plants can dump partially-treated wastes. Those wastes are loaded with harmful germs and virii, and essentially there is no limit to how much can be in the water.
Yet the members of the Clean Water Commission, in their zeal to let polluters continue to pollute, keep using the phrase "swimming" although that language is nowhere to be found in the federal Clean Water Act. The language is "recreation in and on the water". It certainly takes a lot less water to "recreate in and on" than one meter, unless you have a big gut.
The CWC seems intent on protecting grownups with large bodies, and ignoring those leaner or younger types. If the Clean Water Commission lives up to the first part of its title, it should be about protecting water quality, not polluters' interests. However, the CWC seems to equate "supportive" with "attainability" by allowing streams to be removed from WBC that no one has taken a dip in 30 years, is not now swimming in and will not be in the future (how this is to be determined is speculative). But, past, present and speculative future non-swimming does not determine whether or not the stream can attain purity.
Unbelievably, the CWC is also reluctant to grant Whole Body Contact status to the Mississippi River, even though water skiing and swimming regularly occur in the St. Louis area. The chair of the CWC stated that Whole Body Contact in the Mississippi River was "stupid". Mental ability is NOT a criteria for protection.
Instead of complying with the federal Clean Water Act, the CWC members question how many deep (one meter or more) holes are contained in a stretch of stream, how long the stretch is, and how the "average" is arrived at. In short, the CWC continues to debate the number of angels on the head of a pin - which has little or nothing to do with protection of our state's waters. The fact is that no one should be allowed to place anything in the water, no matter how deep or shallow, that is laden with germs. But they do, with the blessing of the state's water quality protectors, endangering the public health.
That is what clean water is all about. Public health. The CWC seems to have forgotten that.