Updates to the surface water quality standards

• July 2, 2021 Director Watson statement 
• April 17, 2020 Director Watson statement
• Oct. 6, 2019 Director Bellon written comments
• Sept. 25, 2019 Director Bellon's testimony at EPA public hearing
• Aug. 28, 2019 webinar public hearing testimony
• July 22, 2019 Director Bellon letter about EPA public hearings
• June 12, 2019 Director Bellon letter to EPA
• June 6, 2019 Attorney General news release
• May 10, 2019 Governor and Attorney General response 
• May 7, 2019 Director Bellon letter to EPA
• April 10, 2019 Ecology news release 

Visit our rulemaking page for more information.

The Public Utility District No. 1 of Chelan County (Chelan PUD) has returned year-round flows to the Chelan River. Chelan PUD has also established habitat along the river, and conducted a 10-year monitoring and adaptive management program to meet spawning, survival, and habitat use objectives for Chinook salmon, steelhead, and resident fish. Following this work, Chelan PUD submitted a request for a Use Attainability Analysis for the aquatic life designated use on the Chelan River to better reflect current and historical uses.

Visit the rulemaking page for more information.

We are considering changes to Washington's surface water quality standards. These changes aim to better protect water quality and physical habitat for incubating eggs and young salmon in rivers and streams. Our goal is to ensure salmon nests, called redds, have enough oxygen to support early life stages of salmon. We also want to better protect these early life stages of salmon from the harmful effects of too much fine sediment in the water.

Read our blog to find out more about how this rulemaking aims to better protect salmon.

Visit our rulemaking page for more information. 

The rulemaking would adopt one or more variances to the water quality standards for organic compounds known as polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs. We are considering the variances in response to applications received from point source dischargers to the Spokane River.

Read our June 10, 2020 press release regarding the status of this rulemaking.

Applications for variances received 

Facilities discharging into the Spokane River must meet Washington's water quality standards, which were revised and strengthened by rule in 2016. There are five facilities that have permits to discharge wastewater into the Spokane River. We are working with the dischargers on a path to meet the water quality standard for PCBs through step-by-step reductions via a variance. All five dischargers, three municipal and two industrial, applied for a variance:

• Inland Empire Paper Company
• Kaiser Aluminum Washington – Trentwood
• Liberty Lake Sewer and Water District – Water Reclamation Facility
• City of Spokane – Riverside Park Water Reclamation Facility
• Spokane County Regional Water Reclamation Facility

Note:  Applications are large files and may take a little bit to download.

Visit the rulemaking page for more information. 

This rulemaking covers multiple revisions including changing the numeric criteria for total dissolved gas in the Snake and Columbia rivers. We adopted changes to the total dissolved gas criteria to allow more water to spill over dams to help salmon migrate  Read our blog to learn about the environmental impacts of allowing more water over the dams.

We are required to conduct a triennial review regularly. A triennial review is used to:

• Provide a forum to discuss issues of interest regarding the water quality standards and their implementation.
• Discuss what new initiatives are being developed by the EPA.
• Solicit suggestions for where guidance is needed to implement the current standards.
• Solicit suggestions for what new or revised criteria are needed in the regulation.
• Discuss the progress with ongoing standards-related efforts.
• Formally modify the long-term strategy and timeline for developing guidance and revising the surface water quality standards.

When we finish the triennial review we determine if formal changes are needed to the standards and if so, initiate the rulemaking process. 

What is the triennial review

We will maintain a long-term list of prioritized topics. Along with list we make commitments to implement changes — in rulemaking or otherwise.

• The short-term priorities identified will be focused on for one-to-five years based on our ability to anticipate and commit staff resources. These priorities will be built into the our commitments to the EPA in our Performance Partnership Agreement.
• The long-term priorities will be reviewed — and modified where appropriate — during each triennial review.

How we prioritize updates

For example, we may find that we can complete four moderate-value projects in the same time as one large-value project, and thus have greater overall benefits. This approach also allows us to consider the costs and benefits of an action and select the least costly course of action.

We focus primarily on short-term formal commitments (one to five years) to avoid over-committing and to keep the process flexible enough to respond to any new priorities.

The latest triennial review for our surface water quality standards was held from Nov. 1, 2010 through Dec. 17, 2010. We are not going through a triennial review currently because we are already have a clear path of immediate priorities for rulemaking, see current actions above.  

We reviewed all comments received during the comment period and developed a five-year plan of prioritized topics. We also created a responsiveness summary based on comments received, including our response to each comment.