Posted on August 9, 2018 by David Flannery
It is certainly not unusual for regulatory agencies implementing water quality standard programs to conduct periodic reviews of the appropriateness of those programs. Such has been the case with the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (“ORSANCO”) for many years. In connection with the current triennial review of its Pollution Control Standards, ORSANCO recently offered the following statement in a public notice and request for comment:
This review of the Pollution Control Standards differs from past reviews in that it asks your input on whether ORSANCO should continue to maintain, administer, and periodically update the current Pollution Control Standards, or should eliminate the Pollution Control Standards and withdraw from the process of maintaining and updating such standards.
The proposal to eliminate this regulatory program was undertaken by ORSANCO following a multi-year comprehensive assessment of ORSANCO’s function and role in partnership with its member states, USEPA, and the many other water quality protection activities that are currently administered to protect the Ohio River. This review caused ORSANCO to reach the conclusion “that all member states are implementing approved programs under the federal Clean Water Act” and that “there appears to be little or no purpose for the Commission to continue the triennial review process of updating the PCS rules.” ORSANCO also concluded that elimination of its regulatory program was being proposed with full confidence that the public would have “the full and complete protection of the federal Clean Water Act and the oversight of USEPA and the states without the redundancy of the current PCS program”. http://www.orsanco.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Preferred-Expanded-Alternative-2-and-Minority-Report.pdf
ORSANCO is seeking comment on this proposal through August 20, 2018. Details of the proposal and the public comment process can be found on the ORSANCO web site. I am sure that ORSANCO would be very interested in hearing from any of you that have a comment on the proposal or any thoughts on the title question about when a regulatory program should be eliminated.
ORSANCO is an interstate compact whose member states include Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Virginia and West Virginia. The Compact forming ORSANCO was signed in 1948 following the consent of the United States Congress and enactment of the Compact into law by the legislatures of the eight member states.
Tags: Ohio River, interstate compact