Legislature(1995 - 1996)
04/01/1996 08:29 AM House RES
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* first hearing in first committee of referral
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
+ teleconferenced
= bill was previously heard/scheduled
HOUSE RESOURCES STANDING COMMITTEE
April 1, 1996
8:29 a.m.
MEMBERS PRESENT
Representative Joe Green, Co-Chairman
Representative William K. "Bill" Williams, Co-Chairman
Representative Scott Ogan, Vice Chairman
Representative Alan Austerman
Representative John Davies
Representative Don Long
Representative Irene Nicholia
MEMBERS ABSENT
Representative Ramona Barnes
Representative Pete Kott
COMMITTEE CALENDAR
HOUSE BILL NO. 342
"An Act relating to water quality."
- HEARD AND HELD
PREVIOUS ACTION
BILL: HB 342
SHORT TITLE: WATER QUALITY STANDARDS
JRN-DATE JRN-PG ACTION
05/09/95 2042 (H) READ THE FIRST TIME - REFERRAL(S)
05/09/95 2042 (H) O&G, RESOURCES
10/17/95 (H) O&G AT 1:00 PM ANCHORAGE LIO
10/17/95 (H) MINUTE(O&G)
02/13/96 (H) O&G AT 10:00 AM CAPITOL 124
02/13/96 (H) MINUTE(O&G)
02/20/96 (H) O&G AT 10:00 AM CAPITOL 124
02/20/96 (H) MINUTE(O&G)
03/21/96 (H) O&G AT 10:00 AM CAPITOL 124
03/22/96 3267 (H) O&G RPT CS(O&G) 1DP 3NR
03/22/96 3268 (H) DP: ROKEBERG
03/22/96 3268 (H) NR: G.DAVIS, B.DAVIS, WILLIAMS
03/22/96 3268 (H) 2 FISCAL NOTES (DEC, F&G)
03/22/96 3268 (H) REFERRED TO RESOURCES
03/27/96 (H) RES AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 124
03/29/96 (H) RES AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 124
04/01/96 (H) RES AT 8:00 AM CAPITOL 124
WITNESS REGISTER
MARILYN CROCKETT, Lobbyist
Alaskan Oil and Gas Association (AOGA)
121 West Fireweed, Number 207
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Telephone: (907) 272-1481
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on CSHB 342
SUSAN BRALEY, Chief
Technical Services and Program Development
Division of Air and Water Quality
Department of Environmental Conservation
410 Willoughby Avenue, Suite 105
Juneau, Alaska 99801-1795
Telephone: (907) 465-5308
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on CSHB 342
PAMELA GREFSRUD, Coordinator
Water Quality Standards
Department of Environmental Conservation
555 Cordova Street
Anchorage, Alaska 99501
Telephone: (907) 269-7568
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on CSHB 342
BILL PERHACH, Lobbyist
Alaska Environmental Lobby
P.O. Box 34
Denali Park, Alaska 99755
Telephone: (907) 683-1373
POSITION STATEMENT: Testified on CSHB 342
ACTION NARRATIVE
TAPE 96-45, SIDE A
Number 000
CO-CHAIRMAN JOE GREEN called the House Resources Committee meeting
to order at 8:29 a.m. Members present at the call to order were
Representatives Green, Ogan, Davies, Long and Nicholia. This
meeting was teleconferenced to Anchorage. A quorum was present.
CO-CHAIR GREEN said this meeting was delayed because the committee
had to wait for a quorum. He said, "we still have four people who
found something more important to do."
HB 342 - WATER QUALITY STANDARDS
Number 0072
CO-CHAIR GREEN announced the only bill on the agenda was HB 342, an
act relating to water quality.
REPRESENTATIVE NORMAN ROKEBERG, sponsor of HB 342, referred to the
new committee substitute for the bill with an attached explanation
of the changes.
Number 0176
MARILYN CROCKETT, Alaskan Oil and Gas Association (AOGA), referred
to the new version, revised March 31, 1996, and said the first
concern addressed was the specific reference to the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA) 303(d) Impaired Water Bodies List. She
said there had been a suggestion at the Friday meeting that the
term "existing" be changed to "natural quality of waters" in each
of those sections. She said the language that was inserted into
this current version was a description, basically, of definitions
of water bodies that would qualify for the EPA 303(d) listing. She
said those are water bodies which the Department of Environmental
Conservation (DEC) has determined do not meet applicable state
water quality standards through the implementation of technology
based or similar controls.
Number 0278
MS. CROCKETT said the language picks up point source discharges
which are specific discharges and non-(indiscernible due to
coughing)source the run-off issue which is obviously much more
difficult to control. The language provides, that while you would
not have to have a more restrictive water quality standard for your
discharge water into the receiving water that is of good quality,
that for those water bodies where there are known problems,
additional controls would be implemented. She said language has
been inserted on page one, line 4, the section that begins on line
11, and then on page two, the section that begins on line 9.
Number 0342
REPRESENTATIVE JOHN DAVIES referred to the first part of the
sentence, "except for water bodies which the DEC has determined do
no meet applicable state water quality standards solely through the
implementation of technology based or similar controls" and said
that didn't make any sense to him. He asked if CSHB 342 says these
are water bodies that don't meet the standards because of lack of
implementation of controls or that they don't meet the standards
and we have determined that by the means of technology.
Number 0408
MS. CROCKETT said the language means that you have a water body
which has been degraded to the point that a permit issued for
discharge, having certain limits in it, would not allow the quality
of that water body to improve, it would further degrade the water
body. If you have a water body that has an extreme load of
sediment in it and you allow the discharger to discharge into that
water body using the technology based controls in place in order to
discharge additional sediments into that degraded water body. She
said it is this type of water body that is being referred to in the
language.
Number 0457
CO-CHAIR GREEN said his interpretation is, for water bodies that do
not meet the standard, the commissioner may require more
restrictive quality standards discharge.
Number 0475
MS. CROCKETT said the language reads, except for those water
bodies. She said, "except for those water bodies, setting those
water bodies aside, for all other water bodies the commissioner may
not require a more restrictive water quality for discharged water."
Number 0493
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked for clarification regarding, "solely
for the implementation of technology based or similar controls".
CO-CHAIR GREEN said the decision for more restrictive discharge
criteria cannot be an arbitrary decision, it must be based on
science.
Number 0515
SUSAN BRALEY, Chief, Technical Services and Program Development,
Division of Air and Water Quality, Department of Environmental
Conservation, was next to testify. She described her involvement
with HB 342. She felt her role was to explain where the state had
concerns in the language, which would cause problems, if it were
incorporated into statute. She had a discussion with Ms. Crockett
in trying to work through some of the issues involved in HB 342.
She said she just received a copy of CSHB 342 and said she didn't
fully agree with what is in the new language.
Number 0604
MS. BRALEY expressed concern with the language surrounding the EPA
303(d) list without calling it that. She also expressed concern
with having DEC identify water bodies in Alaska which have been
impaired to the point that water quality standards are being
degraded and therefore the state is not going to allow them to be
degraded any further. She said it doesn't appear that this
language is getting at the intent of this section.
Number 0642
MS. BRALEY said she thought the intent of HB 342 was to get back to
the natural quality of the water and not have water quality
standards based on "pure water" assuming that you may not have some
natural degradation coming from mineralization or total dissolved
solids. She said many of the water bodies in the state have
natural exceedencies due to turbidity, glacial streams, et cetera.
She said the size of the DEC staff compared to the size of the
state will never allow the Department to be in a position to know
every water body in the state, the point to which it is degraded
and whether the Department would be able to apply this section of
CSHB 342. She said situations need to be determined on a case by
case basis. She said if Alaska was similar to the states of
Washington or Oregon where there is a high population and enough
capital coming in to manage the resources in those states. She
said those states are able to go out with a sophisticated
hydrologic data base and track every segment of every water body in
their state. She said Alaska is not in a similar position, and
questioned whether the state would ever reach that point as Alaska
has three million water bodies. She said she would not be in
support of the language in CSHB 342.
Number 0746
MS. BRALEY suggested, if the intent of CSHB 342 is to get back to
the natural water quality, two terms that would define that are
"natural condition" and "human induced activity." She reiterated
that the state wants to avoid fixing the natural condition of a
water, but wants to focus on human induced changes to the water
bodies. She questioned, upon looking at CSHB 342 section by
section, is trying to be fixed. She referred to her testimony last
week where she pointed out several areas where DEC has the ability
to set water quality standards to be site specific for that water
body. She said she did not see any other way that the state could
set a condition of a water body based on past testimony, except on
a case by case basis.
Number 0824
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG said the intent of CSHB 342 was to involve
the legislature in a discussion on the topics of mixing zones and
sediment, particularly as it related to the petroleum industry in
Cook Inlet and the mining industry throughout the state. He said
CSHB 342 tried to bring some clarity and resolution to those areas
of controversy.
Number 0862
MS. CROCKETT referred to the language in CSHB 342, "except the
water bodies that DEC has determined do not meet", and said she
viewed this language as a case by case determination. She said her
organization did not have any particular objections to deleting
that language and using the word "natural" when talking about the
"natural quality of the receiving water." She said her
organization's concern was that a long, drawn-out process would be
needed to identify what the natural quality of the water body was
before the human activity began and before activities of others
began. She said the term "natural" brings to mind the original
condition of the water quality before man showed up.
Number 0921
CO-CHAIR GREEN asked if the current wording in CSHB 342 was beyond
the DEC's ability to add another water body if someone came in
requesting a permit, while the other water bodies across the state
would not be designated until someone filed a permit request.
Number 1022
MS. BRALEY said the CSHB 342 is going from the original language in
Section 1 and Section 2 where the intent appeared to get at the
natural condition of the water body and not have water quality
standards that were unreasonably set, such as Red Dog Creek. She
said the state shouldn't be taking a Red Dog Creek and applying
water quality standards where there is a high natural
mineralization. She said the CSHB 342 appeared to be going away
from the list of waters that the state is overseeing which will be
done anyway for tracking purposes and to meet the Clean Water Act
Provisions. She said, regardless of whether the state has these
provisions written in statute, the state is going to do this to
meet the Clean Water Act.
Number 1067
MS. BRALEY referred to Gold Creek in Juneau where there is a total
dissolved solid standard which has exceeded the set water quality
standards for the last 50 years. She said an argument could be
made that if mining had not occurred in the 1920s, there would not
be these exceedencies, but added that the water life has been
living in that water for 50 years and to reduce the dissolved
solids standards would probably hurt the water life. She said this
is an example where a water body does not meet a standard and the
state is setting their permit conditions based on what that natural
condition is. She said industry had to go out and do some research
and study the water body to find out the natural condition of the
water. She said this is an example where a case by case basis was
appropriate.
Number 1111
MS. BRALEY reiterated concern regarding the list included in CSHB
342 and that DEC has been charged with doing something. She said
the fact that the department is doing this anyway does not get away
from her question that the new language gets away from the original
intent.
Number 1180
CO-CHAIR GREEN made a hypothetical scenario of two streams that
have not been impacted by man in an industrial standpoint. He said
Stream A is pristine drinking water and Stream B is Gold Creek. He
said an individual requests a permit, "the way I read this, if I
come to you for some sort of water use from Gold Creek that would
apply, that you can say these are the standards because it doesn't
meet the natural water conditions, but if we go to pristine stream
then that wouldn't apply and so then you would say, okay, I'm not
going to impose on you anything more stringent than the EPA
standards." He asked if this was workable and then asked if it was
wrong.
Number 1230
MS. BRALEY said she believed that DEC was doing this type of work.
CO-CHAIR GREEN said he believed the whole purpose of CSHB 342 was
to not impose stronger standards than EPA would impose for pristine
streams.
Number 1250
MS. CROCKETT said this language that is being discussed was
suggested by her organization only because they understood that the
DEC had concern over not being able to improve the quality of water
bodies which are "impaired." She said she used the word "impaired"
loosely, not as a DEC term. She said if this language does not
work, AOGA would have no objection to simply eliminating all the
language and starting all these sections with, "the commissioner
may not", and replacing, "existing" with "natural". She said the
two situations that Ms. Braley described are exactly what AOGA
understood the intent of these sections to be. She said a stream,
that is of lesser water quality, due to sediment metals or
whatever, should not have to discharge pristine discharge into that
water body. She said, if changing "existing" to "natural"
accomplishes that intent, it would be acceptable to AOGA.
Number 1303
MS. BRALEY said this language would fit with the state's water
quality standards currently in place. She requested that Ms.
Grefsrud give testimony, as Ms. Grefsrud had worked the permiting
angle and was involved in water quality standards. She said if you
wanted to clarify, in statute, what is currently in place through
DEC's site specific criteria and through the various standards
which sets the natural condition, DEC would continue to apply their
water quality standards.
PAMELA GREFSRUD, Coordinator, Water Quality Standards, Department
of Environmental Conservation, testified via teleconference from
Anchorage. She said the DEC water quality standards currently have
a provision titled, site specific criteria, which is in the water
quality standards regulation, and allows the DEC to establish a new
permit standard that reflects the natural quality of that stream.
She said, if a stream has a high sediment load which is matchfully
higher than the DEC standards, the Department has the ability to
use the natural existing standard in a permit. She said the
language in Section 1 restates the current DEC language in their
standards.
CO-CHAIR GREEN asked if she was referring to Section 1 in HB 342
or Section 1 in CSHB 342.
MS. GREFSRUD said she had an older version of HB 342 and referred
to the original intent as was stated by Ms. Braley.
Number 1449
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG said, even though the DEC has the ability
to do this case by case criteria, this ability should be put into
statute. He said, if the water body is not on the specified
impaired water body list, DEC should not judge it under a higher
standard. He said the intent of CSHB 342 is to take away some of
the DEC discretion without taking away total flexibility. He said
CSHB 342 would assist DEC because it sets a line of demarcation
between what they have to worry about and what they don't have to
worry about. He said with a limited amount of resources, the DEC
should focus on those impaired water bodies, rather than creating
new problems to focus on.
Number 1503
CO-CHAIR GREEN said that is why he asked the question, "as streams
or bodies are brought to your attention you could rank them yea or
nay."
Number 1509
MS. BRALEY said the DEC ranks the water bodies through the
permitting process. She said if someone comes to DEC and they want
to discharge into a water, whether the Department has paid
attention to it previously, there is a certain amount of
information that the industry has to go out and collect. The DEC
uses that information to make a case by case determination.
Number 1530
CO-CHAIR GREEN said the problem that needs to be addressed is those
water bodies which are not classified on a case by case basis and
where DEC is going to exceed EPA requirements. He asked if DEC
exceeded EPA standards.
Number 1539
MS. BRALEY said she did not believe that DEC exceeded EPA
requirements. She referred to the original intent of HB 342 and
questioned why there was a need for this statute, as she believed
that DEC had the ability in their regulations to do site specific
criteria. She expressed a concern that there is a wrongful
perception that this section is fixing an issue or a problem. She
didn't mean any disrespect, but added that these are complex
regulations and the DEC has obligations, through the Clean Water
Act, to do a lot of what is being said in this CSHB 342. She said
DEC adopted thousands of pages of EPA federal register
documentation, both narrative and numeric criteria, up to 1989.
Number 1580
MS. BRALEY said there was a point where EPA started to diverge and
get into the toxins rule that the state felt it had to stop
adopting, by reference, everything EPA put into the books. She
said DEC felt the Department had an obligation to look at the
numbers and the information EPA was putting out to determine if it
worked for the state of Alaska. She said a prime example is
arsenic. She said EPA came out with numbers on arsenic that DEC
emphatically felt, if those numbers were to go into law, the state
would be in trouble and would automatically violate them.
MS. BRALEY expressed concern that the state has, in their
regulations, only two instances where they have a stricter standard
or methodology that is not EPA approved which HB 342 would change.
She said, rather than create a statute which may have other
ramifications, she would want to go back and figure out what the
specific problem is and whether it can be fixed without creating a
broad statute.
Number 1668
MS. BRALEY said her concern about trying to put a section like this
into CSHB 342, is that DEC has classified the waters in the state
of Alaska for the highest use, which for the most part is drinking
water or, on occasion, aquatic life criteria. She said the reason
why all the water bodies in the state are classified for the
highest use is because, sometime in the late 1970s or early 1980s,
EPA gave all the states a date by which they had to have all their
waters classified. The state of Alaska didn't have the staff to do
this and wanted to make sure the water bodies were protected so the
DEC went to the EPA and said the state would classify water bodies
for the highest use and then the Department would go back and
reclassify streams on a specific basis, depending on the industry.
She said, at that time, EPA assured the state that reclassification
would be a good way to go. DEC then assured industry and others
that if the Department had taken a placer stream, which was not
being used for anything else such as drinking water, the Department
would be able to go back in and reclassify the stream. She said
what the state found out was that EPA had the final approval on the
state's reclassification and, in the end, EPA was the one that put
the "thumbs down" on a lot of the DEC research and evaluation on
what uses could or should be attained on that stream.
Number 1748
MS. BRALEY cautioned the legislature that DEC has tried to do what
EPA has wanted the state to do, in most of the cases. She said the
perception that DEC has a standard on the book which is stricter
than EPA standards, but rather it is that the state has applied the
highest use for the water bodies. She said she has looked for a
statute that could correct that classification, but did not find
anything. She said this classification was required in the Clean
Water Act, the state complied, and said the state has the
provision, in regulation, to reclassify. She believed this issue
of reclassification might be the "heart of the problem."
Number 1787
CO-CHAIR GREEN said it appeared that there were still items that
needed to be worked out in CSHB 342 and announced that he would put
it in a subcommittee. He assigned members to the subcommittee
which included Representatives Austerman, Davies and Ogan with
Representative Austerman as chair. He asked the subcommittee to
work with DEC, AOGA and the sponsor. He said there was a member of
the environmental community to testify and introduced Mr. Perhach.
Number 1850
BILL PERHACH, Lobbyist, Alaska Environmental Lobby, was next to
testify. He read from a statement, "HB 342 is an act relating to
water quality. Section 1 of HB 342 would amend AS 16.05.050 to
prohibit the commissioner from requiring `a more restrictive water
quality for discharged water than the existing quality of the
receiving water'. Section 2 of the bill, using the same language,
amends AS 38.05.020 to the same result.
The intent of these amendments is unclear because the language is
vague. A tighter phrasing, in both Sections 1 and 2, might read:
In waters which have not been impacted by human activity the
commissioner may not require a more restrictive water quality for
discharged water than the existing quality of the receiving water.
Even with such language in Section 1 and 2, HB 342's intent is
still not, still unclear since that described situation seems to be
already be covered by 18 AAC 70. 035, which has been suggested to
replace 18 AAC 70. 025, in the state's Water Quality Standards and
that reads in part: If the department finds that a natural
condition of a water body is demonstrated to be of lower quality
than a water quality criterion for the classes in 18 AAC and that
the natural condition will fully protect designated uses in 18 AAC
the natural condition constitutes the applicable water quality
criteria.
Number 1937
Section 3 of HB 342 amends AS 46.03 with, and here I would like to
change the statement somewhat. The statement reads, with the
apparent result, and I would like to change that to the possible
result of limiting the state's water quality criteria for
settlement strictly to settleable solids. The sediments which
cause turbidity are primarily `fines.' Those smaller particles
remain suspended for longer periods and are the type of sediment
most often associated with heavy metals. Ignoring them, as this
bill might have us do, rather than would, could result in
violations of the Clean Water Act and could impact the state's
salmon resource.
And finally, HB 342's amendment of AS 46.03 would also require
Alaska to adopt any less restrictive federal water quality standard
adopted for the rest of the nation, unless the department can
satisfy the requirements of a new citation presented in the bill by
the AOGA. Although the obvious intent is to avoid a situation
where Alaska might find itself requiring a higher water quality
standard than the rest of the nation, HB 342 overlooks the
possibility that Alaska might, enviably, someday be the only state
in the nation in a position to maintain that higher water quality
standard."
Number 2003
MR. PERHACH referred to a comment by Representative Rokeberg at a
past meeting, "the terms of art of the water quality trade." He
said this language is very confusing. Mr. Perhach said his
approach to this bill has been to try to find the intent of HB 342.
He said the sponsor mentioned today the intent was to involve the
legislature in the discussion of mixing zones and clear up the
language. Mr. Perhach said this is an admirable goal, but didn't
think CSHB 342 succeeded in clearing up the language. He said one
of the intents of HB 342 appeared to be a stream-lining of the
process and there is nothing wrong with that, however this attempt,
has created more confusion. He said the subcommittee should go
back to the simple matter of focusing on waters which have not been
impacted by human activity. He said human activity is the only
issue that the environmental community is really concerned about.
Number 2082
REPRESENTATIVE DAVIES asked for written information on his
statement.
Number 2100
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG requested that Ms. Crockett give a briefing
on some of the other points of CSHB 342.
Number 2107
MS. CROCKETT referred the previous term, "consistent with" as it
relates to having state standards no more stringent than the
federal requirements. So, in those cases where EPA might allow the
state to have a less restrictive standard, the state would not have
a stricter standard. She said AOGA eliminated the "consistent
with" phrase so that now Sections (d) and (e) simply state that the
state water quality standards cannot be more restrictive than the
federal water quality standards. She said DEC, under the
commissioner, should adopt regulations that amend the state
standards so that the state standards are not more restrictive than
the federal water quality standards.
Number 2150
MS. CROCKETT referred to the requirement that every time the
federal regulations changed DEC would be required to amend their
regulations within 12 months. She said, recognizing that this
could be an overly burdensome task, AOGA suggested that Section (e)
be revised so that by August 31, DEC would adopt amendments to the
state standards so that they were no more restrictive than the
federal standards which were in place on January 1, of that year.
She said January 1, would be the target date and would give DEC
eight months to go through the process, adopt the regulations and
then allow time for the Department of Law review and the Lieutenant
Governor review with the goal of the new regulations becoming
effective, no later than, December 31.
Number 2181
MS. BRALEY said this revision is totally unrealistic. She said she
has seen how long it has taken DEC to get very specific, little
pieces of regulations through on the water quality standards. She
said she is assuming that the process includes the peer review, the
public review as well as all the other steps and concluded that
this revision of CSHB 342 is not realistic.
Number 2205
CO-CHAIR GREEN asked what element of the process requires
additional time, was it the backlog, the public process or the
total process of evaluating discharges and stream qualities.
Number 2214
MS. BRALEY said making changes, that will reflect federal quality
standards by a certain date each year is a large process. She said
standards are often thought about as being numeric criteria, but
standards also involve narrative, processes and things that get
much broader. She said the "anti-degradation policy" is one such
example. She said this policy is something that EPA has told every
state that they need to include this in their standards. She said
it took DEC three years to fully evaluate what this was going to do
for the state. She said, granted, DEC was doing other things at
the same time.
Number 2263
MS. BRALEY referred back to the provision in CSHB 342 and said DEC
did not currently have the staff to meet it and said this provision
would require a fiscal note, especially if DEC was going to try to
meet this timeline. She said research needed to occur to determine
what we have in the state, look at what DEC is being asked to adopt
and not just "blanketly" adopt these regulations. She said the
state has adopted regulations in the past and has gotten themselves
into trouble, and said unfortunately, this evaluation process takes
time.
Number 2281
CO-CHAIR GREEN said he understood that CSHB 342 attempts to "not
make it more restrictive and that in each case where there may be
some reason to make it less restrictive, there would be the time
that you would need to spend, focus your energies as well as the
applicant, but that the vast majority where there...you are saying
we are just do what the federal government requires us, why would
that be any different with this bill and under current law."
Number 2302
MS. BRALEY said it would be necessary to evaluate each change to
determine whether that number would be consistent with the water
quality standard or whether the state might want to have a lower or
a higher standard. She said the process, for deciding whether
something should be the same as, lower or stricter is the same.
She said before the state adopts these changes on their books, DEC
would want to look at, evaluate it, look at what other states are
doing, look at how much the state has of it going in the state and
look at where the state has had problems with the industry meeting
a standard. She said there have been standards set by EPA that
aren't measurable or non-detectable, so then DEC has to find
methods that are going to allow the state to get at that level
through detection. She said it is not a "cut and dried process."
Number 2336
CO-CHAIR GREEN said "it is 1996 and if something happens in 1997
are you saying that if EPA changes their standards that it would
take you several years to determine whether those are acceptable or
not." He asked, taking any applicants out of the picture, if DEC
was not capable of following EPA standards within a year.
Number 2364
MS. BRALEY said she did not believe that it was that simple of a
question.
MS. GREFSRUD said EPA is in the business of producing criteria
numbers, documents for chemical compounds and said some of those
chemical compounds cover things like pesticide production,
fertilizer production. She said EPA gets very specific with
compounds that Alaska does not even have. She said if the state
follows through with this intent, the state would adopt, for the
sake of adopting, numbers that won't even be applied in the state
of Alaska. She said DEC has the opportunity to review criteria
that would be applicable in this state and of the 150 compounds
that exist under EPA criteria, perhaps there is a small percentage
which is applied in the state. She said, perhaps, it is this small
percentage which the state should spend their time reviewing in
order to adopt them into state standards, rather than randomly
adopting whatever criteria document EPA publishes in the federal
registers. She said the state would be spending a lot of time
incorporating criteria documents and updates and DEC for compounds
which are not even found in the state.
Number 2428
CO-CHAIR GREEN clarified that DEC does not have the personnel to do
everything, so currently DEC is reacting to EPA. He said if CSHB
342 passed, "which would be beneficial in some cases to some
applicant that may want to do something, if you didn't have that
person, nobody comes forward for the next five years, are you
saying that cannot stay abreast of what EPA may change and asked
you to do. And if the answer is no then this has no bearing on
that, that is another problem. If you say, yes, this then would be
a focus that would not require all this smoke screen background
that I am hearing you say, it would be specific and I am suggesting
that by rearranging that which you put as a priority, that you
would be able to handle this. Because I can' imagine what is being
proposed by this legislation would be that different suddenly, we
are not asking for smelters or things like that, we are asking for
things..."
TAPE 96-45, SIDE B
Number 0000
Co-Chair Williams joined the meeting at 9:17 a.m.
CO-CHAIR GREEN, "so I am concerned that we are hearing a response,
almost global response to a specific question."
Number 0013
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG agreed with what he had said. He said it
is not the intent of CSHB 342. He said the EPA has created
problems in the business community for years. He said CSHB 342 is
directed at a solution to problems and to minimize the amount of
work for the DEC, not create more.
Number 0059
MS. CROCKETT referred back to CSHB 342 and said another concern was
that it required the state to use EPA methods. She said there
could be circumstances where the state of Alaska might develop a
better system. She said to incorporate this into CSHB 342, AOGA
included the same sort of exception language for methods as has
been done for more stringent state regulations. She said these
methods would be subject to the same sort of peer review and
demonstration that the stricter state standards would be subject
to.
Number 0085
CO-CHAIR GREEN referred to the inclusion of the Imhoff Cone method.
Number 0092
MS. CROCKETT said she was not aware where the Imhoff Cone method
was not included in CSHB 342. She said the last provision that was
included in CSHB 342 was the inclusion of peer review. She said
AOGA does not believe that peer review needed to be defined, she
said the procedures which are outlined, starting on the bottom of
page two and running through page four are specific on who can be
selected and the selection process and said that it is sufficient
to guide both DEC and the public on the peer review process.
Number 0138
CO-CHAIR GREEN referred to page two, line 15, and said the "are" in
the middle of the sentence would be "is".
Number 0157
MS. BRALEY said she has not had a chance to closely evaluate the
language and expressed concerns with the meaning on page two, line
15. She said she would want to review the language to make sure
that DEC is fully protecting the state's ability, at some point
down the road, to take over the National Pollutant Discharge
Elimination System (NPDES). She said DEC usually has a range by
which it must fall between and that DEC would want to go back and
talk with EPA to make sure that the state is not jeopardizing any
future possibilities through the statute.
REPRESENTATIVE AUSTERMAN said the subcommittee will plan on meeting
right after Easter and that CSHB 342 will return to the committee
afterwards. He requested that DEC meet and determine the risk
regarding the NPDES permit system.
Number 0212
REPRESENTATIVE ROKEBERG said, if the state does not have an
activity occurring then it does not have a reason to adopt a state
standard which is more or less restrictive.
MS. CROCKETT said she would be able to participate in this
subcommittee.
MS. BRALEY said she would also be able to participate.
ADJOURNMENT
There being no further business to come before the House Standing
Committee on Resources, Co-Chair Green adjourned the meeting at
9:25 a.m.
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