DNR to work out Hinkson Creek stormwater reduction details

The Environmental Protection Agency’s final regulations meant to clean up Hinkson Creek retained a mandate that stormwater flows be reduced by about 40 percent, but the agency added some breathing room.
Columbia, Boone County and MU had vigorously opposed the proposed regulations known as a Total Maximum Daily Load and argued that it could cost several hundred million dollars to implement. They also sought a commitment by the EPA to take an adaptive, phased approach. Their attorneys are still analyzing the document to determine what is enforceable and whether they will challenge it.
In the final regulations released Monday, the EPA added a forward clarifying that the TMDL will be implemented in phases and can be revised throughout the process. The Missouri Department of Natural Resources will work with local stakeholders to develop an implementation schedule.
One of the main issues that rankled the Hinkson stakeholders was that the agency targeted stormwater as a conduit for “unknown” pollutants. They noted that the most recent data used for the TMDL was collected by the Missouri Department of Natural Resources back in 2006, and they wanted an opportunity to perform more studies to see if a problem pollutant could be targeted.
The EPA, for its part, said no one pollutant exceeds regulatory limits, but a toxic mix of pollutants is swept into the creek after rainfall flows off of impervious surfaces such as parking lots. It noted that impervious area in the Hinkson watershed has risen dramatically during the development boom of the past 20 years.
The agency recommends that the local entities begin collecting new data on biological life in the stream as well as water quality measures that may be used to revise the TMDL. At the same time, though, EPA recommends local governments and the university eliminate “harmful bottom deposits” in the stream, “vigorously” enforce stormwater ordinances and improve best management practices controlling erosion (silt fences and rock berms, for example) in the watershed.
Going forward, an implementation schedule and enforcement techniques will be developed by the stakeholders with the Missouri Department of Natural Resources.
“The specifics of it, those will be worked out by the DNR and the stakeholders in the Hinkson stream basin,” said EPA Region 7 Administrator Karl Brooks in an interview Monday.
David Shorr, the attorney for the city, county and MU, said Monday he was sifting through the document to determine its impact.
“We are pleased that EPA has considered some of our concerns,” he said, reading a statement. “We are reviewing the document to determine if it provides sufficient changes to meet our primary concerns of there being a phased methodology based upon actual, current data and utilizing a cost-effective approach.”
Shorr said he is looking through the document to determine what is actually enforceable. If the forward added to the document is enforceable, “we’ve made progress,” he said. He didn’t know as of Monday whether his clients would want to challenge the rule.
Even so, he maintained that using stormwater was an overzealous approach to the Hinkson’s pollution.
“If everything we wanted to do anyway was unsuccessful, the aggressive approach, which is the (stormwater) surrogate, would probably be appropriate after we’ve done everything else,” Shorr said. “To start out with doing surrogates is like Civil War medicine; you cut off the leg to solve the problem. Here, our view would be that we’ve got a little minor wound.”
The EPA ruling brings to a close a process that started with a lawsuit brought against the agency 10 years ago by the American Canoe Association and the Sierra Club. The ruling in that case stipulated a Dec. 31, 2010, deadline, but the EPA asked for a one-month extension in December.
Ken Midkiff, who was the director of the Missouri Sierra Club at the time of the original lawsuit and is authorized to speak for the environmental groups, said the document was “essentially what we as the Sierra Club wanted.” However, he said he was a little disappointed the EPA did not include an implementation schedule in the final document, though he noted the agency has been “reluctant” to take on that role and generally leaves implementation to states and local stakeholders.
To help implement the TMDL, Midkiff said environmental groups would stay active in manually cleaning the streams, and in addition, he would monitor site plans for new developments to make sure they were incorporating enough stormwater controls. In the future, local governments should be more reluctant in granting stormwater variances and make stormwater improvements on existing projects, he said.
“If you’re going to reduce stormwater, then some of the previously approved projects should be retrofitted, such as the Walmart parking lot on Grindstone and the mega (Walmart parking) lot on Conley Road,” Midkiff said.
City Manager Bill Watkins said the City Council will hold a work session in the next month to discuss how they want to tackle the TMDL.
That’s pretty much going to be their call to see what they want to do,” he said.
Asked if there were federal grants or other monies available to help pay for implementation, Watkins said he didn’t believe there was any money available.
Brooks, at the EPA, said Columbia’s opposition stood in contrast to Springfield, where the agency also issued TMDLs regulating stormwater. He said he and other regulators “weren’t hearing much angst” from governments there. But he added that he hoped the two communities could engage in “friendly competition” to clean their watersheds.
Although there “is not really a deadline,” according to John Delashmit, the chief of the Water Quality Management Branch at EPA Region 7, “we want to see progress.”
Midkiff said that unless the local governments try to stop the TMDL’s implementation, he and the environmental groups would not get involved in an appeal of the rule. Right now, he’s just glad the contentious process is over.
“(The Hinkson) is never going to be pristine,” he said. “It’s an urban stream, and it will be impacted. But at some point, hopefully, myself and others can look down and see sparkling water rather than the grungy brown stuff you see now.”