WHILE PORTLAND OFFICIALS spar over costly federal rules for the city’s drinking water, another widespread and potentially expensive water issue has silently crossed the finish line.
As of last week, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) allowed Oregon to set some of the nation’s strictest water quality rules for rivers. And while the new rules are a victory for Native American tribes that depend on healthy fish supplies, financial and technological challenges loom for city treatment plants, agricultural facilities, and other industries.
Runoff from pollutants ranging from arsenic to mercury will now face increased restrictions based on new statistics that show tribe members eat far more river-caught fish than previously thought. The new standards could take as long as five years to fully take effect.
Kim Cox of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services says she is unsure how long it will take to get the city up to speed or how much money compliance will cost.
“We know we’ll have to make some significant technological changes, I just hope it’s a minimal effect,” Cox says. “Anything that needs to meet water-quality standards could be affected.”
In 2008, the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation (CTUIR) and the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission (CRITFC) urged the EPA to adjust river regulation standards. The old standards assumed tribe members ate only 17.5 grams of fish a day—157 grams short of the tribes’ own 2008 estimate. After a slew of public hearings with farmers peeved about the cost of controlling runoff, the EPA finally welcomed the tribes’ request. On October 17, Seattle’s EPA office announced its new criteria: 104 pollutants will meet increased restrictions on the assumption that people eat 175 grams of fish a day. (Officials deny it was a longstanding decimal-point error.)
“This really demonstrates Oregon’s dedication to clean water,” says Diane Barton, water quality coordinator for CRITFC. “It’s also an economic benefit, making fish healthier for the consumer. While it may take some time, it’s worth our hard work.”
Despite the increased regulations of agricultural and forest product runoffs, the EPA says the state, not the feds, should continue to oversee the rivers. Kevin Weeks of the Oregon Department of Forestry says he doesn’t think this boost will even affect his field. “Forest management companies are very much endangered in the rule-making process,” he says. “And both private- and state-owned lands have tight water-quality rules already.”
But EPA spokeswoman Christine Psyk acknowledges the potential consequences from the restrictions. “It’s challenging. It’s going to take time and monitoring for industries to get up to speed,” she says. “But it’s more than that: This is a huge step in Oregon’s commitment to human health.”
But it’s more than that: This is a huge step in Oregon’s commitment to human health.” This statement is really misleading. As a taxpayer, a City of Portland water customer, and a practicing environmental engineer, I’m pretty disgusted by the process that went into changing the fish consumption standard. The simple fact is that these changes are not going to measurably improve human health at all, let alone result in a “huge step”. The problems with what DEQ and EPA did are enormous.
First, I don’t think they ever stepped back to critically define what the problem was. Supposedly, the problem was that it was unsafe to eat fish. Why? What were the contaminants that were causing fish to be unsafe? DDT, PCBs, mercury, and arsenic are commonly referred to as problems. But, the thing is, changing water quality standards isn’t going to affect the amount of DDT, PCBs, mercury, or arsenic in the water. DDT and PCBs are legacy pollutants. They’ve been banned for years, but because of past use, they are ubiquitous in the environment. Requiring the City of Portland to treat for these is ridiculous and expensive and not a good use of my tax dollars.
DEQ acknowledges that something like 97% of the mercury in the Willamette River is from legacy mines or from rainfall that washes mercury (from coal burning in China) out of the atmosphere. So the City of Portland is supposed to treat the tiny bit of mercury in its wastewater (much of it from people brushing the mercury amalgam fillings in their teeth) at great expense with no measurable benefit?
Arsenic is naturally occurring in Oregon soils and waters. The new water quality standard is well below background levels. Is the City of Portland going to have to remove arsenic that is naturally occurring? That’s pretty ridiculous.
Second, is there even subsistence fishing occurring downstream of Portland? And if so, by whom? Setting a fish consumption rate of 175 grams per day (over 6 ounces or a third of a pound) of fresh locally caught fish statewide is pretty arbitrary. Why not just set it for waterways for which there actually are subsistence fishing communities.
Third, the fish consumption rate was arrived at by a fairly arbitrary closed door process. It’s not like there were a number of peer reviewed scientific studies that arrived at this number by consensus. It is a pretty controversial number.
Fourth, the actual risk assessment process used to calculate water quality standards is extremely conservative and really not at all realistic. The factors in the calculation include not only the fish consumption standard, but assumptions that people are going to be exposed daily for 30 years. The toxicity factors used are EPA factors that are already extremely conservative and extrapolated from lab studies. And the “acceptable risk” level is one in a million excess cancers. I don’t wish cancer on anyone, but in a couintry where something like one in 3 people get cancer, the one in a million standard is something that is so low as to be unmeasurable.
Fifth, even with the presence of some contaminants, fish is still a healthy alternative to beef, chicken, pork, and dairy. The contaminants that people are worried about in fish are everywhere in our environment, and they are present in other foods as well. The health benefits of eating fish outweigh the potential risks.
The bottom line is that the process was extremely flawed and it is not likely to produce any measurable benefit. The chemicals that are likely the main risk drivers are legacy and naturally occurring pollutants, and changing a number in a regulation isn’t going to do anything to reduce their levels in actual waterways. We could spend a large amount of money on treating our City’s wastewater to remove something that is present in the river at background levels higher than the standard. It’s really just not a good use of resources.