The Arkansas Department of Energy & Environment – Division of Environmental Quality (“DEQ”) announced it is initiating its 2023 Triennial Review of Arkansas’s Water Quality Standards (“WQS”).
Arkansas Pollution Control and Ecology Commission Rule 2 contains the WQS.
DEQ has stated that it will convene a series workgroups of stakeholders to discuss the 2023 Triennial Review.
The Clean Water requires states and authorized tribes to periodically review and, as appropriate, adopt new or revised water quality standards (“WQS”) to meet the requirement of the Clean Water Act. They must submit any revised or new WQS resulting of such a review, to the EPA for review under Clean Water Act Section 303(c). This is called the Triennial Review. It must be announced to the public and have comment opportunities.
Section 303 of Clean Water Act mandates that each state develop WQS to cover the United States’ jurisdictional waters. They are used to establish water quality goals for specific waterbodies and provide a regulatory basis for the development and implementation of water-quality-based effluent limits for individual point source discharges. WQS has three parts.
- The waterbody is designated for its use
- The water quality criteria necessary to protect existing uses or to achieve the beneficial uses that the state has designated;
- A policy or antidegradation statement to protect existing high quality water uses.
Section 303 identifies WQS adoption as being primarily the state and tribal responsibility. The states must adopt uses that are consistent with Clean Water Act objectives, and meet water quality criteria sufficient for protection of the chosen uses. However, EPA must make sure that the WQS of each state meet the Clean Water Act’s minimum requirements. Therefore, any state WQS change can be reviewed by EPA under the Clean Water Act regulations.
DEQ has stated that stakeholder workgroups will meet in the Commission Room at North Little Rock’s headquarters. A meeting will take place on March 31, 202 from 10:00 a.m. until 3:00 pm, with a break for lunch. It states that meetings can be held as required.
DEQ’s notice also notes:
While representatives from specific organizations will be restricted to certain individuals, additional people are welcome to attend the workgroup meetings which will be open for the public. Any member of public is welcome at the meeting to voice concerns or questions through any participant in the workgroup.
Additional information about the meeting and the program can be found here here.