IDEM Holding Impaired Waterways List?

Gitte Laasby at the Gary Post-Tribune says IDEM is sitting on the list of Indiana waterways it rated “impaired” for 2008. The list was due to the US EPA on April 1st, and although IDEM says it submitted the list, the list is not a public record until the federal EPA approves it:

The list is a public document, said Tom Anderson, executive director of Save the Dunes Council.

Agency: Report is coming

“The intention of our Office of Water Quality is to provide the list when U.S. EPA final approves it,” IDEM spokeswoman Amy Hartsock wrote in an e-mail.

She said the “list of impaired waterways currently posted on the IDEM Web site is the most recent version available to the public. The version sent to U.S. EPA by April 1 is undergoing review and will be finalized once U.S. EPA provides comment. Individuals, groups, and government officials have expressed an interest in the final list, and we will post the U.S. EPA-approved version on the IDEM Web site when it becomes available.”

The list contains rivers, streams and lakes considered impaired for mercury, polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), E. coli and lack of biodiversity. The state was met with resistance when it proposed taking the Grand Calumet River off the list, saying it has the necessary insects and fish.

The federal agency by Thursday still hadn’t received Indiana’s list from IDEM, according to EPA Region 5 spokeswoman Phillippa Cannon.

Link. The article notes that many other states do release their lists to the public when they are submitted to the EPA: “Our constituents expect it to be available for their review and use,” said Linda Oros, spokeswoman for the Ohio EPA.

UPDATE: Now the Gary Post-Tribune is reporting that IDEM has reconsidered. Laasby reports:

The Indiana Department of Environmental Management will release the 2008 Impaired Waters List it submitted to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency after all, IDEM Commissioner Tom Easterly said Friday. “After reading your story this morning I asked staff to provide the draft 303(d) list that IDEM sent to U.S. EPA,” Easterly wrote in an e-mail to the Post-Tribune. “I apologize for the confusion and commit to working on the communication problem that caused this delay.”

This entry was posted on Friday, April 11th, 2008 at 12:26 pm and is filed under environment. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.