Iowa panel weighs changes to clean-water rules

The Iowa Department of Natural Resources's Environmental Protection Commission is considering proposed changes to rules that govern anti-degradation standards included in the state's clean-water regulations.

Groups representing municipal governments and industries, who proposed the changes, say those changes are needed to clarify the state's anti-degradation rules after a court ruling in March created uncertainty.

Environmental groups say the changes would undermine a recent Iowa District Court ruling, weaken water quality protections and undercut the state's Nutrient Reduction Strategy.

That district court ruling in a case involving the city of Clarion leaves industry members 'in limbo regarding what is now required in an anti-degradation review, and potentially facing a much more complex and costly anti-degradation process,” Myron Linn, public policy counsel for the Iowa Association of Business and Industry, said in written comments to the commission.

Adopted in 2010, Iowa's anti-degradation standards, an augmentation of the Clean Water Act, were designed to prevent unnecessary new water pollution. The Iowa Supreme Court upheld the rules in 2014 after a Farm Bureau challenge.

The anti-degradation procedure includes a review of a range of treatment alternatives and requires the selection of the least degrading alternative that is practicable, economically efficient and affordable.

The Iowa Association of Business and Industry, along with the Iowa League of Cities and the Iowa Association of Municipal Utilities, sought the proposed changes. They maintain that 'ambiguous” language should be replaced with a 'bright line” standard that defines economic efficiency as 'an alternative that costs less than 115 percent of the cost of the minimum level of pollution control.”

Susan Heathcote, water programs manager for the Iowa Environmental Council, said in written comments that current procedures require 'consideration of environmental benefits along with costs of the various alternatives and allow elimination of less degrading alternatives only if it can be demonstrated that the alternative is not economically efficient because the cost is disproportionate to the environmental benefit.”

Josh Mandelbaum, a lawyer with the Environmental Law and Policy Center, a Chicago-based public interest group, said the proposed rule changes 'will significantly weaken Iowa's anti-degradation standards and undercut Iowa's Nutrient Reduction Strategy.”

Mandelbaum said anti-degradation rules, intended to prevent new pollution, apply only when an entity wants to increase the amount of pollution or introduce new pollution.

The changes, he said, 'would eliminate the consideration of environmental benefit when looking at the cost of pollution control alternatives.”

With the close of the public comment period Wednesday, the Environmental Protection Commission is expected to discuss the issue at its Aug. 10 meeting in Des Moines.