Agency draws 17 remarks on water

Analysis of rivers, lakes reassessed

By Emily Walkenhorst

Concerns about the Buffalo River and available data figured prominently in comments submitted to the state's environmental agency about its amended plan to assess water bodies.

The Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality is reworking the guidelines it uses to determine if a body of water is impaired. Impaired water bodies are reported to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Public comments regarding the department's draft for its methodology were accepted through Nov. 13. Department officials will respond to the comments when they finalize the methodology.

The department received 17 comments from 16 people and groups. Many asked the department to clarify portions of the document, to define phrases, and to provide rationale and formulas for certain portions. Many also expressed concern that the department's methodology would ignore data that respondents thought should be considered, or not account for issues that have occurred on the Buffalo River and its watershed.

Before the comment period, the department held six public meetings with 23 stakeholders -- including conservation, government and industry groups -- to discuss the assessment methodology and what stakeholders wanted to be included as part of it.

The department issued its draft in the fall. It includes many changes for clarity and consistency with regulations, and rules on data that will be considered. It also includes for the first time a method for analyzing continuous data, which come from frequent sampling. Previously, the methodology contained only protocol for analyzing more occasional sampling.

The National Park Service and the Arkansas Department of Health noted in their comments that the "data assembly" portion of the methodology appears to omit existing data that they consider potentially valuable.

The Health Department takes samples monthly, but the proposed changes would require that it sample more, the agency said.

"The Department of Health's bacteriological data is a consistent data source that significantly contributes to understand water quality in Arkansas and, for that reason, should be included in the assessment of impairment," Lyle Godfrey, the Health Department's technical support chief, wrote in the agency's comments.

The Department of Environmental Quality indicated that a data set of monthly samples could still be used if combined with another data set to create eight samples within a five-month period.

In comments, the National Park Service also expressed a concern that, under the methodology, algal blooms on the Buffalo River over the past two summers should mean that the river is designated as impaired.

The Buffalo River Watershed Alliance said the current and proposed methodology doesn't consider algal blooms, specifically. That's because the nutrients -- phosphorus and nitrogen -- that cause algae are not reported at a numeric level.

The alliance recommended that the state develop numeric standards for nutrients statewide. The standards currently exist only for a portion of Beaver Lake.

Several other Arkansas residents expressed concern for the Buffalo River, but many failed to specifically address the assessment methodology and the department considered them to be "out of scope."

People also expressed concern about whether the department's methodology is in accordance with water anti-degradation requirements and its own anti-degradation policy.

Anti-degradation, required under the Clean Water Act, is intended to prevent waters of higher ecological value from degrading any further than they currently are. Arkansas has an anti-degradation policy but is one of only two states with no formal implementation plan for it.

The National Park Service expressed concern that tributaries to waterways like the Buffalo River are not held to high enough standards because the state lacks an anti-degradation plan, that the department should support the protection of the existing conditions of a water body and that the department should err on the side of caution with certain sensitive water bodies until it develops and implements an anti-degradation plan.

The National Park Service also noted that certain phrases in the methodology on how a final determination will be made suggest that the department will inject subjectivity into its analysis.

The EPA raised several questions about how data would be considered and argued against the state department's proposal to combine data sets taken during certain seasons, saying it was "diluting the data set."

The EPA, and others who commented, argued that waters that appeared to be impaired but needed more data to confirm it should be listed as impaired and not among the waters that already have alternative pollution controls in place, as the department proposes.

Some comments expressed a desire for the department to use the conclusions of a scientist who did research in the 1980s for Arkansas to inform the methodology.

A few responses, including from the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission, noted that the department's assessment methodology draft still includes changes for the maximum amount a water body can exceed the standards to still be considered in attainment of water quality standards.

The department has asked to change the threshold for exceeding minerals levels from 10 percent of the time to 25 percent of the time, while the EPA has not approved the change.