LITTLE ROCK — A Jonesboro utility will ask the state Pollution Control and Ecology Commission on Friday to change water-quality standards for parts of Big Creek and Bayou DeView so the company won’t run afoul of tighter mineral limitations on the waterways.
“Because [the water] was impaired, their permit now has to have effluent limits in there so that the water is not impaired any further,” said Steve Drown, the Arkansas Department of Environmental Quality’s water division chief. “The water is impaired for minerals, so now they have to treat for minerals where in the past they didn’t have to treat for minerals.”
The water bodies were first placed on the state’s list as impaired in 2008.
The list is compiled every two years and shows which lakes, rivers, creeks and streams have been harmed by such things as low oxygen levels, high sediment, high temperature, bacteria, phosphorus, beryllium, ammonia and chlorides.
The utility, Jonesboro City Water and Light, wants the commission to increase the amounts of chlorides, sulfates and total dissolved solids - material left in the water after certain solids dissolve - allowed in Big Creek, one of its unnamed tributaries and parts of Bayou DeView.
Arkansas has 11,900 miles of streams and monitors 9,787 of those miles.
The state’s 2010 impairedwater-bodies list includes 3,732 miles of rivers and streams - or parts of about 300 waterways - meaning 38 percent of monitored waterways are impaired.
That’s fewer miles than were reported to the Environmental Protection Agency in 2008 when the state listed 4,086 impaired miles, 354 more miles than the 2010 report.
Jonesboro City Water and Light is held by the local improvement district and serves an area with more than 60,000 residents.
The utility’s statement of basis and purpose reads in part: “Because Bayou DeView below the mouth of Big Creek and Lost Creek is listed on the 2008 303(d) list as impaired, it is anticipated that City Water and Light’s renewal permit will, for the first time, contain effluent limitations for minerals.”
Changing the standards, which according to Drown were established in the late 1970s and early 1980s and based on “undisturbed streams,” will allow the company to avoid investing in costly treatment technology, Drown said.
“In the late ’70s and early ’80s, the state was divided into six eco-regions, and they looked at the least-disturbed streams and applied a broad-brush standard to each eco-region,” Drown said. “Sometimes those standards are not appropriate for some areas, and Regulation 2 allows site-specific criteriato be set,” he said, referring to the state rules that govern water quality.
Drown also noted that the proposed changes would not harm aquatic life in the waterways.
“It’s kind of like if you have a road with a speed limit of 50 miles per hour because the other roads have the same speed limit,” Drown said. “This road is a dirt path, but that’s the speed limit assigned to it. This is like someone coming along and asking to put the right speed limit on there.”
Drown said the only effective method for treating wastewater for minerals is called reverse osmosis. The process typically consists of a membrane filter and requires a highly pressurized feed-water system to push the wastewater across the membrane.
Ron Bowen, the utility’s general manager, and Jake Rice, general operations director, said the company has worked on the proposal for more than a year, spending between $125,000 and $150,000 on studies to show what impact the changes might have on the waterways.
Drown said the estimated cost of a reverse osmosis treatment plant for the utilityis $6.5 million for the initial installation and $4.4 million for annual operation and maintenance.
The unnamed tributary and Big Creek have chloride standards that allow 48 milligrams per liter of the mineral in the water. That would change to 71 milligrams per liter in the unnamed tributary and 58 milligrams per liter for Big Creek if approved. Both waterways currently allow for 37.3 milligrams per liter of sulfates, and that standard would change to 60 milligrams per liter and 49 milligrams per liter, respectively. Total dissolved solids would increase to 453 milligrams per liter from 411.3 for the tributary.
Bayou DeView’s standards would go from 20 milligrams per liter for chlorides to 48 milligrams per liter; sulfates from 30 milligrams per liter to 37.3 milligrams per liter, and from 270 milligrams per liter to 411.3 milligrams per liter for total dissolved solids.
The Pollution Control and Ecology Commission meets at 9 a.m. at the Department of Environmental Quality headquarters, 5301 Northshore Drive, in North Little Rock.
Arkansas, Pages 11 on 09/23/2010