DEP Stream List Battle Boils Over

Gov. Joe Manchin has waded into a regulatory fight that roiled mostly backstage during the year's regular legislative session, The Charleston Gazette reports.

Manchin has ordered the Department of Environmental Protection to pare down a proposed list of semi-protected West Virginia streams to 156, the Gazette quotes spokeswoman Lara Ramsburg as saying.

That was the potential size of the list when negotiations broke down, during the session, between DEP and industry and other interested parties. As the Gazette article notes, those parties include the West Virginia Forestry Association and the state Farm Bureau.

But that's nearly half of the streams that DEP wants in the state's "Tier 2.5" category of streams, which the Gazette ranks "among a series of compromises with regulated industries."

"Under the state’s policy, streams in this category could not be degraded more than 10 percent," the Gazette explains. "The Tier 2.5 category was created to keep many state streams from ending up classified as Tier 3, a category that allows no degradation at all."

The article also includes this DEP link with info about the stream list and other proposed regulatory rules.

"A public hearing is scheduled for mid-July, and the DEP hopes to submit the new list for legislative consideration during the 2008 session," the article said.