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Water Rule Process Will Be Open, Timmermeyer Says

Posted on: Thursday, 8 September 2005, 00:00 CDT

kward@wvgazette.com

Environmental Protection Secretary Stephanie Timmermeyer is promising to keep the state's water rule writing process open to the public.

The state Department of Environmental Protection is planning the first in a series of public water quality rule meetings for later this month.

A date has not been set, but Timmermeyer said the meeting would be a chance for all interested parties to have their say.

"We want to provide the public the opportunity to have those discussions," Timmermeyer said in an interview last week.

DEP officials are still finalizing the timeline for their first- ever major review of West Virginia's water pollution standards.

Currently, the agency hopes to have the review completed and any proposed changes submitted to lawmakers during the 2007 session.

Under federal law, the state must conduct such a review every three years.

But in the past, water quality rules were written by the state Environmental Quality Board. This year, lawmakers and the Manchin administration shifted that job to the DEP. Industry lobbyists had pushed for the change for several years.

For years, the environmental board held monthly public meetings where water quality rules were discussed in the open.

Under the Clean Water Act, these water quality rules set the limit for how much pollution is allowed in state waterways. DEP permit writers then set individual discharge limits based on those rules.

Under the bill that shifted rulemaking authority to the DEP (SB287), the agency is generally required to hold all meetings with outside parties about water quality standards in public.

Specifically, the law now says that any meetings with "any interested party" for the purpose of "making a decision or deliberating toward a decision" on water quality standards must be open to the public.

Meetings among only DEP staffers need not be held in public. An internal DEP working group is holding monthly meetings that are closed to the public.

Also, the final bill allows the DEP to meet privately to discuss rulemaking issues with other government agencies, DEP contractors and with industry officials seeking site-specific variances from pollution limits.

Gov. Joe Manchin had said in April that he did not want the DEP to take advantage of those open meeting exemptions.

"That's not our intention," the governor said. "We intend to have a full and open type of government here."

Last week, Timmermeyer did not promise to hold all water quality rule meetings with outside parties in public.

She said that private meetings would be held only for the DEP to accept "facts and data" from interested parties and not for deliberations of potential water quality rule changes.

"We will hold meetings on an as-needed basis where interested people can come in with data and their thoughts on the standards," Timmermeyer said. "Maybe one pollutant has more interest than others and we may have a public meeting just on that pollutant."

Timmermeyer added that she hopes all interested parties will want to hold their discussions in public.

"We would hope that anyone who has facts or information would give them to us at the public meeting so other interested parties can hear their views," Timmermeyer said.

To contact staff writer Ken Ward Jr., use e-mail or call 348- 1702.

Source: Charleston Gazette, The

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