Local governments plead with EPA to modify Hinkson Creek runoff rules

With the deadline approaching for the Environmental Protection Agency to impose strong regulations meant to improve the health of Hinkson Creek, city, county and university officials met with EPA staff at their regional headquarters in Kansas City to make a final plea for modifications.
The EPA organized the Dec. 20 meeting in response to a request from Columbia Mayor Bob McDavid and Boone County Commissioner Karen Miller. The local governments and MU reiterated their arguments against the impending regulation, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load, that would mandate a 40 percent reduction in stormwater runoff into the Hinkson Creek.
The TMDL as its written now is “riddled with prospects for complete failure,” David Shorr, the attorney who represents the city, county and university in the negotiations, told the EPA.
Yet the requirements it would impose would make “our current stormwater ordinance look tame,” Shorr said afterward. Development could be entirely restricted in the watershed, which encompasses 60 percent of property within the city, and huge public improvements would have to be financed by taxpayers, he said.
Ken Midkiff, representing the environmental groups that sued to get the regulation, did not attend the meeting but said afterward that the TMDL would improve the creek’s water quality and would not be as complicated or costly as the local governments predict.
The EPA gave little indication of whether it would change its direction. The agency’s regional counsel, David Cozad, said at the conclusion of the meeting that improving urban watersheds has been a top priority of the current administration.
“I was heartened to hear you share our concern,” he said. “We are looking to work with cities that are interested in being model cities.”
A 2001 court order stemming from a lawsuit against the EPA by the American Canoe Association and the Sierra Club required the environmental regulator to develop TMDL rules for 174 streams in this region that were in violation of the federal Clean Water Act. That court order stipulated a Dec. 31 deadline, but the EPA and the plaintiffs have both asked for a 31-day extension. Those involved said a judge was likely to grant an extension because both parties agreed on its length.
Other than Hinkson Creek, only two creeks in the EPA region — both in Green County near Springfield — still do not have a finalized TMDL, EPA spokesman Chris Whitley said.
The local governments and university have been skeptical of the proposed rules since the Missouri Department of Natural Resources first unveiled a draft TMDL more than a year ago. Since then, the EPA has taken over the process, and the total reduction of stormwater runoff has been lowered, but local officials still contend that it is too costly and has no guarantee for success.
Generally, TMDLs are implemented to reduce specific pollutants. The Hinkson TMDL does not specify a particular pollutant as the main cause of the creek’s impairment. Instead, the document proposes reducing overall stormwater runoff, which regulators said will reduce a host of pollutants in the creek and bring it back to health.
That, local officials said, is an untargeted, inefficient approach that will be the hardest and most expensive to implement. Shorr cited a similar TMDL in Vermont at the meeting as a benchmark for the cost. Multiplying the cost of implementing the Vermont TMDL for the size of the Hinkson watershed, such reductions here would cost nearly $300 million, he said.
“We are not prepared to make a leap on $300 million without due diligence,” Shorr said at the meeting.
The city, county and university are asking the EPA for more vigorous study so they can target spending to achieve the greatest impact on the health of the creek. Many of the studies on the Hinkson included in the TMDL were conducted by DNR from 2002 to 2006, and officials in the Columbia area say many actions to improve the watershed, such as the removal of wastewater treatment plants on the creek, have since been implemented. New studies, they said, might reveal a healthier creek or at least identify areas and pollutants that could be specifically targeted to efficiently improve the watershed.
“If EPA comes back and says, ‘We need a more comprehensive methodology, but we’d like you to consider X, Y and Z in the meantime while we find out,’ I’d assume (my clients would) listen,” Shorr said in an interview.
But Midkiff, who was the director of the Missouri Sierra Club at the time of the original lawsuit, said he is confident that reducing stormwater flow into the creek would improve its health and that improvements must start now.
“We have let it be known very clearly to EPA that the only extension of that consent decree will be until Jan. 31,” Midkiff, who is authorized by the national Sierra Club to act as the lead contact on the issue, said.
At the meeting in Kansas City, local representatives cited numerous problems with implementing the TMDL. The TMDL says livestock in the watershed are likely a “significant source of pollutants,” but local officials pointed out that agricultural activities are exempt from many of the regulations they could implement.
The other problem is reducing pollutants likely caused by runoff from the Interstate 70 and US Highway 63 bridges that intersect right over the creek. A Missouri Department of Transportation salt storage facility in the area was moved a few years ago to address high chloride concentrations in that area of the creek, but studies have not measured the impact on the stream since then. Further improvements in that area would require cooperation with MoDOT, Shorr said.
“Some of the sources are beyond the legal authority of our (stormwater permit) capabilities,” Shorr said.
Another argument against targeting stormwater raised by Shorr is that it might ultimately raise the concentrations of the unidentified pollutants. “If we reduce the load to the point they’re talking about, it may make it toxic,” Shorr said
Midkiff dismissed that argument.
“The opposite is actually true,” Midkiff said. “Since the pollutants are carried by stormwater, you actually reduce the pollutants.”
Shorr told the EPA that his clients are in the process of soliciting services for new studies on the creek to determine if it has improved and what pollutants should be targeted first. He estimated that some targeting information should be available in a year, and within two years some information on trends in the creek’s health should be available. City Manager Bill Watkins said the studies should begin in the spring.
Those studies, Shorr said, should have been conducted by DNR, but “they have no money.” So the city, county and university will pick up the tab.
“We’ve got to find out because we’ve got to reduce our risk,” he said. “But is it the city’s fault because there’s no data?”
Ultimately, all his clients want is more specific data from newer studies and a commitment to a phased, specific approach, Shorr said. No one is disputing the need for a TMDL or that the creek could be improved, he said. But the document right now is too broad.
“We want to lock it down so we know exactly what we have to do,” Shorr said. “It’s important that it not be so open for misinterpretation.”
Midkiff stressed that delaying the TMDL or not meeting its requirements would result in a formal complaint from the Sierra Club.
Midkiff also countered Shorr’s dire predictions of the regulation’s impact. Midkiff said many of the stormwater improvements could be done relatively simply. For instance, he suggested that the Walmart on Conley Road could put in permeable pavement. More detention ponds would have to be put in along the watershed, though, he added. And he pointed out that a whole host of federal grants for stormwater improvements are available, which would reduce the overall cost.