State turning blind eye to water issues
By KEN MIDKIFF
Published Friday, August 15, 2008
(http://www.columbiatribune.com/2008/Aug/20080815Comm002.asp)

When it comes to the health of our streams, rivers and lakes, we are the canaries in the coal mine.

Although most people believe that the state departments of natural resources and health are there to protect us, such is not the case.

After all, when was the last time DNR or the health and senior services department issued an advisory about how contact with the water in some local swimming hole might be hazardous to your health? Yet, every day, pollution pours into our streams, rivers and lakes, and waters in this state become fouled and unhealthy, filled with germs and other nasty things.

There are more than 12,000 permits to pollute in this state. Although polluting industries and sewage treatment plants prefer "discharge permit" to "pollution permit," every permit issued allows pollution within prescribed limits. Most of the permits do contain a clause that allows DNR to take a sample at random, but this seldom occurs, simply because DNR does not have sufficient employees to take 12,000 samples per year, much less per day.

What this means is that those 12,000 permit holders do what is called "self-monitoring." Needless to say, sometimes things that should get reported don’t get mentioned. How many times have you turned yourself in for going 80 mph in a 70 mph zone? That, however, is the essence of "self-monitoring" - turning yourself in.

When dead fish are noted or a person gets seriously ill from ingestion of fouled water, the water protection folks at DNR do take action. But, note, this is after an incident has occurred. Only when one of the canaries - which is all of us - becomes affected is action taken.

Most often that action amounts to a mere slap on the wrist - or nothing at all, as Gavin Off noted in an article last year in this newspaper. Every day, there are multiple violations of permits, of the Missouri Clean Water Act and the federal Clean Water Act, but thanks to lenient enforcement and "self-monitoring," most of these go unnoticed.

DNR is required by federal law to submit, every two years, a list to the Environmental Protection Agency of waters that don’t meet the standards for their designated use. According to the federal Clean Water Act, all waters of the United States are to meet "whole body contact standards" or, in the language of the Clean Water Act, to support recreation in and on the water. The standard for "whole body contact" is mostly the number of germs in the water. A certain number of germs is OK, but over that number, the water can cause skin problems or make people sick.

Usually, DNR meets the reporting requirement. But only a few clean water policy wonks, such as me, know which streams, rivers and lakes are on this list. It is true that this list (referred to as the "303(d) List" for the section of the Clean Water Act that requires it) is posted online - but that places the burden on the public to locate it, and it is not easy to locate.

It is also true that every classified body of water in the state is given what is called a "designated and beneficial use." Those are contained in 10CSR20-7, Tables G and H. Betcha didn’t know that. No need to be embarrassed - outside of DNR staffers, Clean Water Commission members, polluters and policy wonks, hardly anyone knows of this. To be sure, it is publicly accessible. It is just not known.

Now we turn to the Department of Health and Senior Services. Charged with protecting the public health, it turns a blind eye to unhealthy waters. Rather than notifying the public of the dangers of swimming in, say, the Missouri River, it hides this information in, once again, an obscure Web site.

A few years ago, when it was known that a chicken slaughterhouse and packing plant was polluting Cave Springs Branch, in far southwest Missouri, making it unfit for human contact, a request was made that the health department mark the stream as hazardous to health. The department refused on the grounds that hardly anyone came in contact with the water in the stream. When it was pointed out that this was simply untrue and the health department continued to deny the existence of a problem, Missouri and Oklahoma farmers took matters into their own hands, had some signs laminated and posted them at the stream at all public access points.

That is how things stand. There are a few Stream Team volunteer water quality monitors on some streams - mostly near urban areas. Some of the volunteers have received extensive training, and their data have the same "quality assurance" as DNR or EPA staffers. However, thanks to the influence of organizations of polluters and polluting industries, such data have been ridiculed and dismissed. Committed and concerned Stream Team volunteers are laughed at, and the only valid and up-to-date information is scorned.

Bottom line: When it comes to taking a cool dip on a hot day, you’re on your own. Our state departments in charge of water protection and public health are not on the beat.

Pure, clean water? Public health protection? Not in this state. Not as long as the fox is in charge of the chicken house.