Article: EPA declines to regulate ship discharge

Skirting what some scientists say is the most significant water quality

threat to San Francisco Bay and other ports -- invasive species -- the Bush

administration announced that the U.S. Environmental Protection

Agency will not regulate ballast water discharges from ships.

http://www.siliconvalley.com/mld/mercurynews/news/local/states/california/pe

ninsula/6679920.htm

Article:   Federal Dams Could Get Break on Water Temperature Rules

  WASHINGTON, DC, October 14, 2003 (ENS) - A rule proposed Friday by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) would ease regulation of water quality standards on Oregon rivers with federal dams, a move that critics believe would undermine efforts to restore endangered salmon.

Environmentalists criticized the proposal rule as a "virtual exemption" for Oregon dams from water temperature standards that protect salmon from lethally hot temperatures.

And they sounded concerns that this proposal is merely a foreshadowing of a pending plan by the Bush administration to expand the proposal to exempt all federal dams from the standard - and potentially the entire Clean Water Act.

"This process sets in place a swift and strict timeframe in which EPA would weaken Clean Water Act protections for salmon to avoid controlling pollution, including lethally high temperatures - something that would devastate our wild salmon and the rural communities and businesses that depend upon them," said Pat Ford, executive director of the conservation group Save Our Wild Salmon.

  Published Friday in the Federal Register, the proposal would give federal dam operators the ability to petition the EPA if they believe they would be unable to meet temperature standards designed to ensure water quality and protect endangered fish.

  The rulemaking is in response to a March 2003 ruling that found the EPA had violated the Clean Water Act and the Endangered Species Act when it approved 1999 water quality standards for the state's rivers - except for the Columbia River.

  The Clean Water Act was enacted to restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the nation's waters - and contains the interim goal of providing water quality "which provides for the protection and propagation of fish, shellfish, and wildlife."

  Dams cause large areas of water behind them to pool and heat up to temperatures often too warm for native salmon.

  Operators can fluctuate flows to try and compensate - and to comply with the Clean Water Act - but federal managers are not always keen to do so.  Oregon state officials currently decides if an exemption from the Clean Water Act is worth pursuing, but the proposal would give that decision to the federal dam operator. It would allow the operator to ask the EPA for analysis of whether the exemption is justifiable.

"Instead of implementing the difficult measures needed to protect our salmon and environment, the Bush administration prefers to circumvent or change the law, so that tough decisions are never needed," Ford said. " If President Bush is serious about protecting salmon, he needs to start abiding by his own laws instead of rewriting them to fit his political needs."

Copyright Environment News Service (ENS) 2003. All Rights Reserved.

Article: Final report from the National Research Council says some dams must be removed and wetlands restored, but that taking water from farms would not help fish recover in the Klamath Basin.

http://www.oregonlive.com/search/index.ssf?/base/front_page/106682428983970 xml?oregonian?fpfp