Good afternoon, Chair Ringo
and members of the committee. My name is Rhett Lawrence and I am an Environmental
Advocate with OSPIRG, the Oregon State Public Interest Research Group. We are
a non-profit, non-partisan public interest advocacy organization with more than
28,000 members across the state of Oregon. I appear before you today to urge
your support for Senate Bill 555.
As you all know, clean water
is essential to our quality of life in Oregon. And with the Willamette valley
being home to seventy percent of Oregon's population, it is no exaggeration
to call the Willamette River the lifeblood of our state. But we've got a federal
Superfund site in the Portland Harbor and the river is actually threatened for
virtually all of its 187 miles. The problems confronting the river come from
numerous sources, such as industrial point sources and urban and agricultural
runoff. And while the sorry condition of Oregon's iconic river is certainly
shameful, it's really just a microcosm of the problems confronting all of the
waters of the state.
Senate Bill 555 is an important
first step towards cleaning up the Willamette River and the rest of Oregon's
waterways by closing a loophole allowing polluters to discharge toxic chemicals
at toxic concentrations into the waters of our state. This bill to eliminate
so-called "toxic mixing zones" from our rivers could be the most critical
step our state has taken in 30 years to protect our water quality. However,
SB 555 is also a very reasonable proposal that - notwithstanding some of the
dire predictions you will no doubt hear today - will help get our rivers cleaned
up while also ensuring that there will not be an adverse effect on the economy.
First, however, we should
clarify exactly what a toxic mixing zone is. Toxic mixing zones are defined
by state regulation (OAR 340-041-0053) as zones where, when issuing a wastewater
discharge permit pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act, the Department of
Environmental Quality (DEQ) "may suspend all or part of the water quality
standards" that DEQ has developed to protect aquatic species and human
health. Often the zones allowed in these permits can be the size of several
football fields and can allow the discharge of chemicals like mercury, lead,
and arsenic to exceed the toxicity standards by several thousand percent.
In other words, the polluter
is not being required to meet water quality standards at the end of the pipe
and is instead granted a permit to use our waters to theoretically dilute its
waste. Of course, we know that heavy metals and other persistent bioacccumulative
toxics do not dilute, but instead collect in the sediment and often work their
way up the food chain through invertebrates and the fish that eat them. The
quaint notion that "dilution is the solution to pollution" simply
no longer holds water for many of the chemicals discharged to the waters of
our state.
DEQ allows toxic mixing
zones in virtually every discharge permit it issues, including scores of permits
on the Willamette and even in the Portland Harbor Superfund site. However, DEQ
does not know how many toxic mixing zones there are in the state, does not have
a map of where they are located, and does not know how many tons of toxics are
released into Oregon rivers because of them.
In addition, there is no
requirement that these zones be marked off or signed in any way, so there's
no way to know if you are fishing or swimming in a toxic area. Indeed, there
are a number of mixing zones around some of our state's most popular fishing
areas such as near Willamette Falls, where toxicity standards for chemicals
such as lead and mercury may be violated by 700-800%.
Oregon law already states
that "[p]ollution of any of the waters of the state is declared to be not
a reasonable or natural use of such waters and to be contrary to the public
policy of the State of Oregon." (ORS 468B.020.) Senate Bill 555 will simply
clarify that, under Oregon law, polluters cannot dump toxic waste in toxic concentrations
into our rivers and streams. Dischargers will instead need to treat their wastes
onsite so that the water quality standards are met at the end of the pipe, instead
of being given permission to degrade the waters that belong to all of us.
So what exactly will SB
555 do? The short answer is that it will require DEQ to phase out the issuance
of toxic mixing zones in permits by 2011 for industrial sources and 2013 for
municipalities. However, the bill also provides exemptions if phasing out a
mixing zone would be "a significant and unreasonable burden" on the
permittee due to impacts on jobs, costs, or technology limitations. We are sensitive
to economic conditions in Oregon and we believe that these provisions will ensure
that this measure does not cause undue hardship to businesses in our state.
Indeed, any structural changes required to retrofit facilities could actually
provide a boost to Oregon jobs.
There simply is no need
for this issue to be seen as a "jobs vs. the environment" debate,
as there is room enough in this proposal to protect both. Clearly, quality of
life and protection of our environment are hallmarks of what makes Oregon so
special. In this case, the bottom line is that if we do not want our rivers
to be toxic, then we have to stop dumping toxic pollutants at toxic concentrations
into them.
Certainly, Senate Bill 555
will not solve all of the problems confronting our waterways, but it is a necessary
and crucial first step. Presumably, our state sets water quality standards for
a reason: to protect human health and the environment. If we are truly serious
about protecting our health and getting the Willamette and other rivers cleaned
up, we simply must close this toxic loophole and phase out toxic mixing zones
in Oregon. Thank you for your time and I'd be happy to answer any questions.
