Waterway rules being reviewed

The state Department of Natural Resources is reviewing the recreational uses of more than a dozen Boone County streams to decide whether they should be exempt from a proposed water quality rule that would require higher levels of sewage treatment.

Proposed water quality rules, which could go into effect in April, will influence how sewage treatment facilities decontaminate bacteria in waterways deemed suitable for recreational uses such as swimming and fishing.

The local waterways under review include sections of Hinkson, Bonne Femme, Little Bonne Femme, Perche, Gans, Grindstone, Rocky Fork and Little Cedar creeks.

The department of is relying on a “use attainability analysis” to determine a water body’s recreational use.

The use analyses must be filed by July 14, which is the final date for public comment on the rule.

The department will then determine which streams aren’t suited for recreational purposes.

Waterways are considered as sections up to two miles downstream of sewage discharge locations.

Kerry Cordray of the department’s Water Protection and Soil Conservation Division said that streams unable to support recreational uses “shouldn’t be subjected to standards set to protect that use.”

The Boone County Regional Sewer District hired Barr Engineering to conduct use analyses

Pluse analyses on nine watersheds. District Manager Tom Ratermann said that all new and renovated treatment systems will disinfect effluent under the new rules, but added that it would be a “great expense” to disinfect at all discharges.

The sewer district disinfects at four of its 47 sites. All 47 sites discharge into 18 stream reaches, which are sometimes different sections of the same stream. Seven sewer district facilities discharge into Rocky Fork Creek, which contains more public effluent than any other stream in the county.

The new standards could require additional disinfection at 32 sewer district sites. Ratermann estimates a preliminary price tag of $300,000 to meet new standards. Changes would have to be made within three years after the rule’s implementation, depending on the permits of different treatment facilities.

The use analyses place the burden of proof on showing that there is no current recreational use and that future use is unattainable.

Ken Midkiff of the Sierra Club Ozark Chapter is confident that few waters will be removed from the new rule.

“For someone to say that Hinkson Creek or Grindstone Creek cannot attain whole body contact is laughable,” said Midkiff, who said he has photographic proof that he has been swimming in all of the streams in question.

The city of Columbia pipes its treated sewage effluent to municipal treatment wetlands near McBaine that use cattails and biological processes to provide additional treatment before the effluent flows into the Missouri River. Steve Hunt of the Columbia Public Works Department said the city has not conducted a use analysis because of the magnitude of the Missouri River, but believes the city will “probably be asked to disinfect.”

The new rule is required after the Missouri Coalition for the Environment sued the Environmental Protection Agency in 2004 because all Missouri waters do not meet standards in the federal Clear Water Act of 1972. The EPA delegated rule-making power to the Department of Natural Resources but has final judgment on the issue.

The Clean Water Commission decides on the new rule in August. The approved version must then be reviewed by the EPA before potentially going into effect in April.