Arkansas legislative committee reviews, advances water quality standards
The Joint Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committee on Wednesday reviewed amendments to Arkansas' surface water quality standards rule, which is part of the state's enforcement of the federal Clean Water Act.
As part of the Clean Water Act, the state is required to review — and if necessary, revise — the standards every three years.
The rule, currently called Rule 2, was pulled from last month's committee agenda to give lawmakers more time to review the changes, which include the addition of five new health-based water quality standards for benzene, methylbenzene, xylene, toluene and phenol.
The rule also amends existing criteria for ammonia and cadmium, which haven't been updated in decades, to bring them in line with revisions made by the Environmental Protection Agency within the last 15 years.
Rule 2 standards apply to surface waters — such as rivers, creeks, lakes and wetlands — not to drinking water, which is governed by a separate federal law, the Safe Drinking Water Act. While the Division of Environmental Quality oversees Arkansas' enforcement of the CWA, the Arkansas Department of Health enforces the SDWA in the state.
'It's not a blanket effluent limit,' DEQ Director Bailey Taylor told committee members. The standards are for the 'ambient' water quality, and permit limits for facilities like wastewater treatment plants and industrial plants that discharge waste into surface waters are backcalculated from the standards, she said.
Under the revised rule, the 'primary contact season,' the period during which people are most likely to be recreating in the water by swimming, fishing or boating, would be extended by two months so it would now fall from April to October.
Pressed by Greenwood Republican Rep. Lee Johnson for an explanation for the change, Taylor said standards during the primary contact season are tighter for some measures than outside of it to account for greater human contact with the water. Taylor singled out bacteria standards as one example. She said the change was made to account for water recreation that's been happening in April and October.
Johnson said it was 'interesting' that the division was moving to make the change now, and asked if DEQ believed Arkansans were swimming more in 2025 than they were in 2020 or in the 1980s.
'I just wonder why we're deciding now to change the recreational season when it's been in effect for a long time,' Johnson said.
Taylor said the division was trying to account for recreation that was happening outside of the traditional May to September season. Johnson countered by asking if DEQ had collected any data showing that more people were engaging in water recreation during the extended months. Taylor said the decision was based on 'anecdotal stakeholder engagement.'
The rule will next be considered by the Arkansas Legislative Council's Administrative Rules Subcommittee.
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