OKLAHOMA CITY – The Oklahoma Water Resources Board will meet next week to consider changing a water quality standard that could affect the state’s efforts to limit phosphorus in the Illinois River and its tributaries.
Early this year the OWRB proposed a new rule that would change the phosphorus standards in the Illinois. That change, which is moving through the state’s rulemaking process, would alter the way total phosphorus is measured and monitored by changing the criteria for duration and frequency.
The proposal also would add a new issue known as “critical condition.” That item addresses the surface runoff flow and total flow in a stream’s channel. A critical condition would exist when the base flow is 55% or greater of the total daily average flow.
OWRB staffers told the Muskogee Phoenix that the definition and the 55% threshold had “proved to be a controversial issue for this water quality standard.”
“Environmental stakeholders are concerned that the 55% allows too much phosphorus loading to both the Illinois River and Lake Tenkiller,” Rebecca Nascimento, the OWRB’s environmental program manager, said in an interview with the Phoenix. “Agricultural stakeholders and northwest Arkansas municipalities would like the threshold adjusted to reflect a lower baseline condition.”
Phosphorus is one of the main ingredients of blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria. Blue-green algae can produce toxins that contaminate drinking and recreational water. Fact sheets from the Oklahoma Department of Health warn that the algae can cause sickness in humans and can be fatal to animals including cattle and dogs.
A study by Indiana University indicates phosphorus and nitrogen are two of the main ingredients of blue-green algae.
“In the landscape, run-off and soil erosion from fertilized agricultural areas and lawns, erosion from riverbanks, riverbeds, land clearing (deforestation), and sewage effluent are the major sources of phosphorus and nitrogen entering waterways,” the study said. “All of these are considered as external sources.”
In addition, the ‘internal origin of nutrients’ for the algae comes from the lake and reservoir sediments. “Phosphate attaches to sediments,” the study said. “When dissolved oxygen concentration is low in the water (anoxic), sediments release phosphate into the water column. This phenomenon encourages the growth of algae.”
Oklahoma has long battled problems caused by blue-green algae. Many of the state’s large lakes, including Grand Lake and Tenkiller, are forced to limit swimming and public access to the water when algae blooms are present.
More than two decades ago, after a lawsuit against poultry producers along the Illinois River, the state adopted a threshold for phosphorus of 0.037 milligrams per liter for all designated scenic rivers.
That threshold, however, has never been met and is regularly exceeded.
This year, however, after a change was proposed to the standard, environmental groups expressed concerns, saying the change could lead to deterioration of the state’s scenic rivers.
“Oklahoma’s phosphorus limit for scenic rivers must be enforced without further delay,” said Denise Deason-Toyne, president of Save the Illinois River, Inc., an environmental group. “It must not be weakened for any amount of time, for any reason, for any entity, private, corporate or municipal.”
Some groups said they believed the change was being driven by poultry producers in Arkansas who were pushing for a variance that would be less stringent.
Former Oklahoma Attorney General Drew Edmondson agreed. Edmonson, who spearheaded the lawsuit against poultry producers in Arkansas, said the original standard was approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and was upheld in federal court.
“The standard has resulted in improvement of the watershed,” he said. “I don’t know what basis the OWRB would have to change a standard.”
Edmondson said he also was concerned that the standard would be changed while the lawsuit against poultry producers remains unresolved.
“The lawsuit over the Illinois is not over,” he said.
In January, following push back against the rule change, the OWRB altered the proposal, basing their recommendation on a two-year study of the impact of phosphorus on state rivers and streams.
The OWRB’s new language drew a lukewarm statement of support from the Save the Illinois group.
“Save the Illinois River, Inc., believes the Oklahoma Water Resources Board’s proposed Oklahoma Scenic Rivers phosphorus criterion should be adopted with the grammatical clarification we present in this public comment,” the group’s statement said.
The organization commended the OWRB and its staff for crafting a revision “as well as possible within the constraints of the Oklahoma-Arkansas Joint Agreement” and praised the agency’s public presentations.
However, what isn’t commendable, the group complained, was that the phosphorus standard was first adopted 20 years ago and has never been met.
“Certainly the river is a little cleaner now than it was 20 years ago because sewage treatment plants have removed much phosphorus from their point-source discharges to the Illinois River and its tributaries,” the group said. “But much non-point source phosphorus and legacy phosphorus continues from the poultry industry, especially after a rain.”
Edmondson agreed. He said the proposed rule change could create new problems for the Illinois River. The change “would be an invitation to poultry companies to apply more liter to land in a dangerous way,” he said. “It baffles me why they would want to go in that direction.”
The Water Board will consider the rule change at its March 16 meeting. Should the board approve the rule, it will go to the Oklahoma Legislature and Gov. Kevin Stitt for consideration this year.
If approved by the Legislature and the governor, the rule would become state law in September and be submitted to the EPA for review.