Published: June 19, 2007 05:50 pm            

Environmentalists, developers to face off again

Just as it drew a line in the sand a few months ago, a contested stream anti-degradation plan remains a sword dividing environmentalists and industrial entities across West Virginia.

In dispute is a revised list that would put 156 streams under the so-called “Tier 2.5” umbrella.

Originally, the Department of Environmental Protection wanted 303 streams accorded such safeguards, but lawmakers rejected the list, so the DEP downscaled it to 156 after some intense negotiations with stakeholders.

“And that was their choice,” Gov. Joe Manchin’s legislative director, Jim Pitrolo, said Wednesday, emphasizing the governor stayed out of the talks.

“When it came time to file a new rule, rather than refiling it at the 303 level, DEP Secretary (Stephanie) Timmermeyer suggested, and the governor agreed, that we might as well start where we were. We were at 156. That’s the way they filed it.”

Pitrolo said the governor didn’t dictate the list to Timmermeyer but accepted her advice when the number was downscaled.

If the 156-stream list is adopted, that isn’t necessarily the end of the issue, he pointed out.

“There’s a process where a stream can be added to the list. It doesn’t exclude them. There’s a process for nominating streams. After they’re tested, they can be added to the list.”

No matter what occurs at a July 16 hearing in Kanawha City, it still remains in the court of the Legislature in the 2008 session.

“Our position is that we should let science and the DEP do what’s right and keep politics out of it,” said Gary Zuckett, executive director of West Virginia-Citizen Action Group.

“All these streams had been evaluated scientifically. The reason there is a 2.5 list is the Clean Water Act requires the state to identify streams of high quality that have reproducing trout and things like that, which is a very good draw for our tourism industry.”

In opposition is the West Virginia Farm Bureau, which had no problems with designating streams if they ran exclusively on public land, which numbered around 70.

Communications director Shelly Courtney said the farm bureau takes exception to the DEP’s stance that a 2.5 designation won’t affect an individual’s right to develop his land.

In fact, the farm bureau is upset with the way in which property owners learned of the proposed designation.

“We feel that each individual who was living adjacent to a stream should have been given individual notification as we believe the law stipulated, and they weren’t,” Courtney said.

Farmers engaged in “best management practices” virtually are left alone.

“But where the kicker is, you’re farming it today and maybe 20 years from now, your son or grandson wants to do something else with the property and may not be able to because it’s a 2.5 stream,” she said.

“There’s only so much degradation allowed in those streams — 10 percent.”

In other words, if a neighbor upstream has a campground and has reached the 10 percent ceiling, any plans another landowner has downstream must be abandoned, Courtney said.

Zuckett sees the impending showdown as between the environmentally aware and the “polluters.”

All streams with high quality deserve to be on the list, and that means the original 303, the WV-CAG leader said.

Zuckett characterized Loup Creek in Fayette County as “the poster child” for the disputed list.

Working in tandem with millions of taxpayers’ dollars, he explained, Loup Creek was born out of a “what was basically a sewer” and converted it into a robust stream where trout run freely.

But Courtney sees the longer list DEP first drew up as a threat to not only agriculture but logging, gas wells and other industries.

“Even housing as far as sewage goes, and things like that,” she said.

“Streams could only handle so much. You’re going to be limited as to how much development you can put in a stream. Some people argue that places like Snowshoe and Canaan Valley would not even be in existence today if this law were implemented 20 or 30 years ago.”

You can bet Courtney and Zuckett will be at next month’s hearing, a prelude to the real showdown next winter.

“That’s the final decision where the rubber meets the road,” Zuckett said.

— E-mail:

mannix@register-herald.com

        

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