Mercury in the Willamette River
Oregon DEQ illustrates how to ride a stationary bicycle
by Nina Bell • January 22, 2020
I recently finished writing a 17-page comment letter on Oregon DEQ’s proposal to downgrade protection from mercury contaminating the Willamette River basin. The proposal is called a “variance” and this one is a 20-year removal of water quality standards that are supposed to protect people from mercury-contaminated fish. The variance is a head-scratcher in several ways unless you accept that DEQ is just plain scared to do its job and protect water quality. (I do.) Even so, there are two parts to this story, both of which are absurd.
The first part is that DEQ just plain doesn’t know how to read (unlikely) or follow instructions (more likely). Most likely is that DEQ is counting on the Trump EPA to rubber stamp its plainly illegal proposal. DEQ’s proposed Willamette mercury variance just straight up doesn’t follow federal rules. These rules say that a variance can name one or more permitted polluters. Or, it says that DEQ can not name the polluters but instead it has to spell out what land use practices would reduce mercury in the Willamette. So, what does DEQ do? It chooses to NOT name the polluters AND it does NOT name the pollution reduction practices. Instead, it makes up an entirely new category of variance than EPA allows. Yup, gotta be counting on the Trump EPA to approve that.
Now, the second part of this idiotic scheme? In response to NWEA’s recent win in a 2012 lawsuit, this December, DEQ is being forced to re-issue a new clean-up plan for mercury in the Willamette River basin. DEQ’s plan shows that 95 percent of the mercury is coming from runoff from nonpoint sources, mostly farming and logging. Yes, that would be the very nonpoint sources that would be covered by the mercury variance if DEQ followed EPA’s rules. But, no, even as DEQ identifies nonpoint sources as the greatest source of mercury to the Willamette, DEQ rejects the notion that it should say out loud what farmers and loggers need to do to clean up mercury that is at unsafe levels in Willamette River fish. Oh for pity’s sake!
