LegAlert #97-17

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EPA Proposes California Toxics Rule
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Seven years late, a complicated procedure is nearing an end by which
the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is proposing water quality
standards for several pollutants for California surface water. The maximum
levels proposed for mercury, dioxin, and thirteen other pollutants have
been identified by respected environmental advocacy groups as (1)
insufficiently protective, and (2) environmentally unjust, potentially
increasing the cancer risks for subsistence fishers, who are, in large part,
people of color.

In establishing standards for mercury, dixoin, PCBs, and other
contaminants, the proposed new rules assume fish consumption at 6.5
grams per day. In reality, surveys reported on by San Francisco
BayKeeper and Communities for a Better Environment have found that
consumption of fish in certain communities can be as high as one pound per
day, over 60 times more than estimated by the EPA. Even at one-quarter
pound per day, the proposed standards for these contaminants will mean a
cancer risk 1000 times higher than current state law establishes as
"acceptable."

As a matter of environmental justice, public agencies should not be
allowed to underestimate fish consumption by people, and should include in
their assessment a review of fish consumption by people of different races
and cultures. Frequent, if not daily, consumption by subsistence anglers is
different than occasional fish consumption by the general population.

The standards must be established at a level that makes California
waters truly "fishable," and not just "fishable if you don't object to cancer."

Other problems. Here are problems with two major contaminants
under the proposed new rules. (1) Mercury. According to the San
Francisco BayKeeper, the proposed mercury standards fail to account for
the bioaccumulation of mercury in fish tissue. Bioaccumulation can be
determined from extensive studies in the Great Lakes, which found that
bioaccumulation is four to twenty times greater than what EPA estimates
for California. The proposed standard ignores mercury that enters fish
through their own consumption of food.

(2) Dioxin. California used to have standards for all seventeen dioxin
compounds. The proposed new standard applies only to one, and that
proposed standard is .014 parts per billion. It should be at least one order
of magnitude more protective, in other words, .0014 ppb. In fact, a good
case can be made that the appropriate water quality standard for dioxin is
zero.

The proposed new rule also contemplates "compliance schedules"
that could postpone for up to ten years compliance with the proposed new
rule. On top of the seven-year delay in getting this far, that is
unconscionable.

In general, the concern is that California must have numeric criteria
for toxic pollutants that protect the waters and aquatic life and public
health. Increasing the limits on toxins will mean that we are postponing the
goals of the Clean Water Act to make the waters of the United States
"fishable and swimmable." An unintended consequence of the proposed
rule is that the progress that has been made in cleaning up the state's waters
will not be expanded, and that the regulatory ability to create
innovate programs will be replaced by mediocre programs that don't
improve the condition of water quality across California.

ACTION NEEDED: The EPA is currently accepting comments on its
proposed numeric water quality standards criteria for California surface
water. Write the EPA and urge the prevention of toxic pollution in
California's bays by creating more protective standards that consider all
toxic pollutants of concern and that address the consumption habits of
subsistence fishers, as well as "average" fish consumers.

Send letters to:
Diane Frankel
California Toxics Rule Project Manager
US EPA -- Region IX
Water Management Division
75 Hawthorne Street
San Francisco, CA 94105

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