Stakeholders are waiting to find out if pollutant requirement will be reconsidered

By SARA HOTTMAN

H&N Staff Reporter

April 3, 2011

    In two weeks, local groups affected by the Klamath and Lost rivers total maximum daily load order will find out whether their efforts to collectively dispute the pollution reduction mandates worked.

   The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality is reviewing petitions for reconsideration filed by local government, the city of Klamath Falls and Klamath County; private enterprise, Columbia Forest Products, PacifiCorp, and South Suburban Sanitary District; and irrigator group Klamath Water Users Association.

   Steve Kirk, DEQ Klamath Basin coordinator, said the agency’s director still is reviewing the petitions and will announce by April 15 whether he will grant reconsideration.

   TMDL order  

   Total maximum daily loads, or TMDLs, mandate the amount of a pollutant that may be added to water bodies.

   The order affects municipalities, businesses and irrigators. Those stakeholders are concerned about the costs associated with the pollution reduction order they say is unreasonable.

   “One of the things we all have in common is we’re downstream of Upper Klamath Lake,” said Greg Addington, director of Klamath Water Users Association. “We’re all being penalized for poor water quality in Upper Klamath Lake.”

   Each party filed a separate petition for reconsideration, but the concerns are generally the same: the cost of implementing TMDL requirements is steep and the methods and assumptions used to reach conclusions were flawed.

   Upper Klamath Lake, which has had a TMDL order since 2002, is thick with blue-green algae, and the soil surrounding it contains high amounts of phosphorous, stakeholders contend.

   “Water quality is naturally poor in Upper Klamath Lake. We (as downstream water users) are not going to be able to fix that problem,” Addington said. “It’s one thing to not make it worse, but we’re being asked to make it better before we get it.”

   Reconsideration  

   In February, the city and other stakeholders filed petitions for reconsideration asking the DEQ to revisit the order and consider amending its requirements.

   The DEQ has 60 days from the filing to decide whether to reconsider its order.

   If it declines to, Mark Willrett, city public works director, said staff would ask the City Council if it wants to take the next step in the process and file a petition for review in circuit court.

   Last week, the stakeholders as a group met with a representative from Gov. John Kitzhaber’s office to express their concerns about the TMDL order.

   “Hopefully those concerns get passed on to DEQ,” Willrett said.

Side Bars

Point versus non-point pollution sources   

   Stakeholders in the Klamath River total maximum daily load have different concerns with the pollution reduction order based on whether they are point sources or non-point sources.

   Point sources for pollution are wastewater treatment facilities, such as those owned by the city of Klamath Falls or South Suburban Sanitary District. They treat wastewater and discharge it into nature.

   Non-point sources are entities like irrigators or the county, which have water runoff that is polluted, but doesn’t discharge directly into a water body.  

   Agricultural water entities — irrigation districts, irrigators, the Bureau of Reclamation — are called management agencies in the total maximum daily load order, said Greg Addington, director of the Klamath Water Users Association.

   “It’s unknown what that means,” he said. “… It says we have to comply. What does that mean? No chemical treatment of weeds? … We just don’t know.”

   Water users have come up with worst-case scenarios, like having to install filtering technology, but they can’t estimate costs until they have more information, Addington said.

   Stan Strickland, Klamath County public works director, said the county is still unsure what its requirements will be.

   “We’re in the very early stages of getting ready to prepare a water quality implementation plan,” Strickland said.

   He believes the plan will consist mostly of “best management practices” more than installing infrastructure.  

   In the context of the federal Clean Water Act, which requires TMDL orders to improve impaired water quality, best management practices would mean amending county practices and procedures to reduce pollution in runoff water.

   Strickland said the county for years has worked with the Klamath Watershed Partnership on public education, another component of best management practices.

About the total maximum daily load order  

   2003: The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, in conjunction with California’s water quality agency and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, start researching the total maximum daily load order for Klamath and Lost rivers.