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Environmental Groups Oppose Changes to ORSANCO Commission

RICHMOND, Va. – After failing to get rid of its pollution-control standards entirely, a multi-state commission will vote this week on a plan that would let states such as Virginia decide how they want to enforce clean-water protections.
The plan being pitched as a compromise by the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitary Commission is opposed by several environmental groups who claim it reverses efforts by states connected to the Ohio River and its watershed to prevent sewage contamination, runoff pollution and toxic contamination. Gail Hesse, Great Lakes Water Program director with the National Wildlife Federation, said maintaining regional pollution-reduction goals is common sense.
“We need regional standards for a river that needs to be managed as a connected system,” Hesse said. “State boundaries are arbitrary, but the river is one. It’s a very large river – it’s 981 miles long. And we need to think of it as a single system.”
In 2018, the commission faced backlash for proposing to get rid of pollution standards. Pressure from opponents continued at public hearings over the new plan to keep the standards in favor of states choosing how to enforce them. A vote is expected at the end of the commission’s meeting on Thursday in Covington, Kentucky.
Hesse said she is still trying to understand the motivation behind the proposal, and cited a lack of transparency throughout the entire process.
“The deliberations among the commissioners have been held in executive sessions – sessions that are not open to the public,” she said. “The voting that they take is in public but it serves as a formality based on the deliberations held in private.”
Environmental groups in each state, including the National Wildlife Federation, have sent letters in opposition to the change. In addition to calling for the current regional criteria to remain the same, they are calling on the commission to strengthen pollution standards instead of finding ways to weaken them.