By Wally Kennedy

wkennedy@joplinglobe.com

Some area residents are planning to attend a regional meeting Thursday in Springfield on the proposed exemption of several small streams in Southwest Missouri from state bacteria standards.

The meeting is slated for 6 to 8 p.m. at the Southwest Regional Office of the Missouri Department of Natural Resources, 2040 W. Woodland St.

The meeting is one of seven to be scheduled by the DNR for discussion of the department’s proposal to modify standards on certain streams in Missouri.

The meetings were organized by the DNR after the department became aware of what it has described as “misinformation” about what is being proposed.

In a prepared statement released July 22, Doyle Childers, director of the DNR, said: “There has been a great deal of information about this; unfortunately, much of it has been misinformation. Oversimplification and misstatements from several groups have caused public alarm that is totally unnecessary.”

But critics of the proposed changes, including the Sierra Club and the Missouri Coalition for the Environment, have questioned why the streams are being considered for exemption.

That’s the question Ruby Wilks, of Purdy, and some of her neighbors are asking. Wilks, who lives near Little Flat Creek in Barry County, one of the streams proposed for exemption, said she is planning to attend the meeting.

“We need to get that question answered,” she said. “Why would they want to declassify a stream at all for bacteria?”

Wilks said the DNR’s proposal to declassify a two-mile stretch of Little Flat Creek has generated local interest. The DNR has received letters from Purdy-area residents, she said, that indicate Little Flat Creek is used for swimming and other types of recreation.

The department has said streams proposed for bacterial exemptions will not be declassified if local residents can show that the streams are used for swimming or whole-body contact.

Wilks said other residents in Barry County who live near the South Fork of Capps Creek, another stream proposed for exemption, also are planning to attend the meeting Thursday in Springfield.

Other streams proposed for exemption in Southwest Missouri are Glendale Fork in Barton County, Truitt Creek and Douger Branch in Lawrence County, and Carney Creek in Barry County.

During the meeting, DNR representatives will explain the department’s Use Attainability Analyses, or UAA, and how it selected the streams for exemption. A UAA is a structured, scientific study of a stream to determine if whole-body-contact recreation, or swimming, is an attainable or existing use. The standards set for the protection of public health depend on the findings of the UAAs.

The UAA protocol, established by the Missouri Clean Water Commission, combines stream-depth measurements with interviews and public notification. Based on recent data, the department is considering removing the swimming use on 47 streams, less than 1 percent of Missouri’s classified streams. These are streams that typically do not flow during the summer months but might contain pools deep enough to support swimming.

“We are getting letters from people concerned that we will allow raw, untreated sewage into Missouri streams,” said Dan Schuette, director of the department’s Division of Environmental Quality. “This is not the case, and it is irresponsible to promote this notion.”

The federal Clean Water Act assigns swimming and fishing uses to all waters of the United States, where the use is attainable. Waters that attain the use must meet bacterial standards. The states are charged with determining attainability.

“We are a resource management agency, and we have to protect the public,” Schuette said. “But we also have to ensure that the requirements and standards that we set are necessary. We should not be forcing ratepayers to protect uses that don’t exist.”

The department, he said, will not allow the discharge of raw sewage into state waters. Wastewater must be treated before discharge and must be sufficient to meet all downstream water-quality standards.

The DNR is accepting comments on its preliminary recommendations until Aug. 31.





Information



To determine which streams were surveyed and to review the Use Attainability Analyses information, people may visit www.dnr.mo.gov/env/wpp/wqstandards/uaa/uaa_county.htm. Additional information may be obtained, or comments may be sent to the department, through the Web site or by mail to UAA Coordinator, Department of Natural Resources, Water Protection Program, P.O. Box 176, Jefferson City, MO 65102-0176.