fish consumption rate Archives

EPA to Develop Federal Clean Water Standards for Washington, if State Won’t

Courtesy Environmental Protection AgencyThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue water quality rules to uphold certain levels of fish consumption. — Courtesy Environmental Protection Agency
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will issue water quality rules to uphold certain levels of fish consumption.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has told the State of Washington it intends to step in to develop a federal plan for the state’s human health water quality criteria as the state did not finalize a plan by year’s end, a deadline EPA gave the state last April.

The EPA’s rulemaking process, in part tied to the human fish consumption rate, will overlap the state’s potential timeline but preserves the EPA’s ability to propose a rule in case the state does not act in a timely manner, EPA regional administrator Dennis McLerran wrote to Department of Ecology head Maia Bellon on December 18.

Under the federal Clean Water Act, the state must adopt standards that ensure rivers and major bodies of water are clean enough to support fish that are safe for humans to eat. Washington’s current standard assumes people eat just 6.5 grams of fish a day, or about one filet a month.

Tribal leaders with the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission, which represents 20 western Washington tribes, met with the EPA’s McLerran in September seeking to step in and set new water-quality rules for the state, after sending Washington Gov. Jay Inslee a letter expressing dissatisfaction with his proposed draft rule change last July.

Inslee’s draft rule would raise the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day to protect people who eat one serving of fish per day, a figure that tribal leaders accept. But it has taken the state two years to work out the new draft rule in a political push-pull between business interests and human health advocates, which have each missed their own deadlines in the process.

Tribal leaders say they are also “deeply concerned” about a proposal privately advanced by Inslee that would allow a tenfold increase in allowable cancer risk under the law. The EPA letter asks Washington to explain why a change in the state’s long-standing cancer risk protection level is necessary.

The state’s draft rule is now expected in January, but since the EPA believes it can complete a proposed federal rule by August 2015, the state is looking at a limited time period in which to finalize its rulemaking process.

If not, the EPA is prepared to move forward with rulemaking that McLerran wrote considers the best science, and includes an assessment of downstream water protection, environmental justice, federal trust responsibility, and tribal treaty rights.

Tribes Want EPA Involved In Washington Clean Water Rulemaking

By Associated Press

EVERETT, Wash. — An alliance of Washington tribes says it will ask the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to step in and come up with new water-quality rules for the state.

The Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission sent Gov. Jay Inslee a letter on Thursday expressing “dissatisfaction” with his proposal for updating the state’s clean water rules that are partly tied to how much fish people eat.

The Herald reports that the tribes say the proposal won’t do enough to protect tribal members. They’re also concerned about another delay.

Inslee’s plan would increase the fish consumption rate to 175 grams a day, but the tribes say that improvement is offset by other less protective changes.

An Inslee spokesman said Saturday that the governor’s office and the Department of Ecology hope to discuss Inslee’s proposal with the group.

Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late

Note: Being Frank is the monthly opinion column that was written for many years by the late Billy Frank Jr., NWIFC Chairman. To honor him, the treaty Indian tribes in western Washington will continue to share their perspectives on natural resources management through this column. This month’s writer is Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe and an NWIFC commissioner.

“Being Frank”

Inslee Water Quality Plan Too Little, Too Late

By: Russ Hepfer, Vice Chair of the Lower Elwha Klallam Tribe

More delay is about the only thing that any of us who live here in Washington can count on when it comes to a badly needed update of state water quality standards to protect our health.

After decades of foot-dragging by previous governors, Gov. Jay Inslee recently unveiled his plan to revise our state’s ridiculously outdated water quality standards. While the plan offers a small increase in protection from 70 percent of the toxic chemicals regulated by the federal Clean Water Act, it maintains the inadequate status quo for the other 30 percent.

At best Inslee’s plan offers minimal progress in reducing contamination; at worst it provides a tenfold increase in our cancer risk rate.

Water quality standards are based in large part on how much fish and shellfish we eat. The more we eat, the cleaner the water needs to be. Two numbers drive our water quality standards: our fish consumption rate and our cancer risk rate from pollution in our waters.

Inslee’s plan rightly increases our fish consumption rate from the current 6.5 grams per day (about one serving of fish or shellfish per month) to 175 grams per day (at least one meal of fish or shellfish per day).

Support for that amount is a huge concession by tribes. Most tribal members, as well as Asian Americans and Pacific Islanders eat far more than 175 grams of fish and shellfish per day. Current studies show daily consumption rates of 236 to 800 grams. Even those numbers represent suppressed rates. If more fish and shellfish were available for harvest, more would be eaten.

While giving a little with one hand, Inslee takes away a lot with the other, increasing our “acceptable” cancer risk rate tenfold, from one in a million to one in 100,000. Do you think anyone who gets cancer from the pollution in our fish and shellfish would find that risk rate acceptable? Would you?

That one in a million rate has protected all of us for the past 20 years. By increasing the cancer risk rate Inslee effectively cancels out most of the health benefits and improved water quality provided by the increased fish consumption rate.

The fish consumption and cancer risk rates are supposed to protect those who need it the most: children, women of childbearing age, Indians, Asian and Pacific Islanders, sport fishermen and anyone who likes to eat local fish and shellfish. When the most vulnerable among us is protected, so is everyone else.

To make up for the loss of protection under the cancer risk rate, Inslee proposes a statewide toxics reduction effort that would require legislative approval and funding. While the idea of a large toxics reduction program is a good one, it is not a substitute for an updated state water quality standards rule that carries the force of law.

No one knows what the Legislature might do, but two things are certain. There will be more delay and more opposition to Inslee’s proposal. Boeing and other opponents to improved water quality rules will likely engage in full-strength lobbying during the session to block any meaningful change, claiming that it will increase their cost of doing business.

The state has a clear duty to protect the environment to ensure that our treaty foods such as fish and shellfish are safe to eat. If not, those rights are meaningless. We will not put our hard-won treaty rights or the health of our children in the hands of the governor or state Legislature.

Our treaty rights already are at risk because most salmon populations continue to decline. The reason is that we are losing salmon habitat faster than it can be restored. What good is restored habitat if it does not include clean water?

Washington could have joined Oregon as a leader in protecting human health and natural resources. Oregon two years ago increased its fish consumption rate to 175 grams per day and kept the one-in-a-million cancer risk rate. Now Oregon has the highest standards of protection in the United States.

Meanwhile, the Oregon economy hasn’t suffered and not one company has gone out of business as a result. Don’t we all deserve the same level of protection as Oregonians?

Any kind of justice that is delayed is justice denied. That includes both social and environmental justice. Further delays and weak water quality standards only worsen the suffering of many. Inslee’s plan is too little, too late.

Wash. To Host First Public Meeting On Inslee’s Fish Consumption Rate Proposal

By Bellamy Pailthorp, KPLU

Washington is slowly moving ahead with a long-delayed plan to update its water quality rules. Tuesday’s will be the first public meeting on Gov. Jay Inslee’s proposal to dramatically increase the fish consumption rate, which determines how clean discharged water must be. But some say the proposal doesn’t go far enough.

The governor’s plan would increase the fish consumption rate to about a meal a day, rather than a meal a month. It would increase the current rate of 6.5 grams per day to 127 grams per day. That’s the same rate recently adopted by Oregon, which has the strictest rate in the country.

“Well, yes, but it’s important to remember that that’s just one part of this equation,” said Chris Wilke with Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, one of four groups that sued the federal government last year to force it to make the state comply with the Clean Water Act.

Wilke says the plaintiffs are glad to see a more realistic fish consumption rate. But at the same time, he points out that Inslee’s proposal also lowers the bar on the allowable risk for cancer by a factor of 10, from one in a million to one in 100,000.

“It appears the state has kind of engineered the standards to come out where they want them to be or where might be acceptable to business interests,” Wilke said.

The state Department of Ecology says the Governor felt the compromise is necessary, because businesses have warned tightening the standard too much would prompt them to move jobs elsewhere.

And instead of just cleaning up the aftermath, Inslee is pushing for additional policies to discourage use of the chemicals in the first place, to “shift people away from using these kinds of things that are so problematic for the permit holders,” said Carol Kraege, who leads the state Department of Ecology’s toxics reduction efforts.

But the plaintiffs who brought suit for cleaner water say such policies might not make it through the Legislature. And they say a similar compromise was recently put forward in Idaho and rejected by the Environmental Protection Agency.

Fish Consumption Rate a bargain

Though higher now, reflecting a more accurate statistic, there seems to be no affect in limiting pollution

By Andrew Gobin, Tulalip News

Today, Governor Jay Inslee met with tribal leaders before holding a briefing on Washington’s Fish Consumption Rate (FCR) and water quality. The new FCR, now set at 175g per day, comes with the compromise that increases allowable pollution 1000 percent.

Originally set at 6.5g per day, Puget Sound tribes, with the support of the public minority, have been pushing to reexamine the FCR, seeking a number that more accurately reflects the amount of fish consumed by Washington residents per capita. The rate of 6.5g per day specifically included a section that mitigated the high consumption of seafood by tribal communities, allowing for a low number to be reached. The new rate of 175g per day is a more realistic representation of the seafood consumed by all Washington residents.

The FCR is a measurement used to gauge the impacts of water pollution on the public. Former standards stated that the acceptable level of toxins allowed could only lead to one in one million people to develop cancer. The FCR that was set at 6.5g was intended to allow for a tenfold increase in pollution and water toxin levels.

Although Washington’s FCR is now almost 30 times higher than what it was, the agreement to increase the FCR was achieved through a compromise, bargaining to increase the acceptable persons to get cancer from one in one million, to one in 100,000. That means that the acceptable level of pollution would be ten times higher.

In the NWIFC statement Lorraine Loomis, vice chair of the Northwest Indian Fisheries Commission and fisheries manager for the Swinomish Tribe, said, “This is a political decision, not one based on sound science. While a toxics control effort is needed, it is not an effective replacement for strong water quality rules and standards. We cannot continue with a pollution-based economy.”

“We’ve been working with the state on this issue for more than 20 years. We need action,” she added.

Tribes will be meeting with the EPA to review the proposed changes and evaluate their next move.

Andrew Gobin is a staff reporter with the Tulalip News See-Yaht-Sub, a publication of the Tulalip Tribes Communications Department.
Email: agobin@tulalipnews.com
Phone: (360) 716.4188

A Wonky Decision That Will Define the Future of Our Food

Governor Inslee Is Now Weighing the Acceptable Cancer Rate for Fish Eaters Against Business Concerns

By Ansel Herz, The Stranger

Washington State has two choices: a 10-times-higher rate of cancer among its population, particularly those who eat a lot of fish, or a bedraggled economy. That is, assuming you believe big business in the long-running and little-noticed debate over our “fish consumption rate,” a debate that Governor Jay Inslee is expected to settle, with significant consequence, within the next few weeks.

The phrase “fish consumption rate” sounds arcane and nerdy, for sure, but it really matters, and here’s why: There are a plethora of toxic chemicals—things like PCBs, arsenic, and mercury—that run off from our streets, into our waters, and then into the bodies of fish. The presence of those pollutants puts anyone who eats fish (especially Native American tribes and immigrants with fish-heavy diets) at higher risk of developing cancer.

Knowing this, the state uses an assumed fish consumption rate (FCR) to determine how great cancer risks to the general population are and, in turn, to set water-cleanliness standards that could help lower cancer rates. Currently, Washington’s official fish consumption rate is just 6.5 grams per day—less than an ounce of fish. Picture a tiny chunk of salmon that could fit on your fingertip. That’s how much fish the state officially believes you eat each day. But that number is based on data from 40 years ago. Everyone admits it’s dangerously low and woefully out of date.

Three years ago, Oregon raised its FCR up to 175 grams (imagine a filet of salmon), the highest in the nation. Now it’s up to Governor Inslee to update Washington’s FCR. Jaime Smith, a spokesperson for the governor, says he’ll make the final call in the next few weeks. Meanwhile, as with anything else, there are groups lobbying Inslee on either side. The business community—including heavyweights like Boeing, the aerospace machinists, local paper mills, the Washington Truckers Association, and the Seattle Chamber of Commerce—want our FCR to be lower. In a letter to Inslee on April 1, they warned that a higher FCR would result in “immeasurable incremental health benefits, and predictable economic turmoil.” In other words, the letter says, a one-in-a-million cancer risk for people who eat a lot of fish would hurt the economy, while a one-in-a-hundred-thousand risk is more reasonable.

Smith, the governor’s spokesperson, says the governor wants to raise the FCR in a way “that won’t cause undue harm to businesses. Obviously business has a stake in this.”

But, Smith says, “at the same time, we have people who eat a lot of fish.” Businesses have hired consultants who’ve painted worst-case scenarios, she explains, “that probably aren’t realistic.”

At the end of the day, does the governor’s office have any evidence that raising the fish consumption rate would actually kill jobs? “Not necessarily,” Smith says. She hinted that Inslee will raise the rate to a number close to Oregon’s.

In fact, businesses like the Northwest Pulp and Paper Association made the same dire predictions before Oregon increased its FCR to 175 grams per day. What happened? “We are not aware of any business that has closed that was directly attributable to those rules,” says Jennifer Wigal, a water quality program manager for the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Were there job losses? “Not that I’m aware of,” she says. Broadly, Oregon employment rates have continued to trend upward since the recession, while the job availability in the paper and pulp industry, she says, has long been slowly declining.

Opposite the business community are Native American tribes, environmental groups, public-health experts, and the Seattle Human Rights Commission. (In a strongly worded March resolution, the commission said the state should raise its fish consumption rate to same level as Oregon’s.) Jim Peters, of the Squaxin Island Tribe, says the waters of Puget Sound, where tribal members have always fished, need to be better protected from pollutants. “It’s part of our life,” he says. “It’s part of our culture.” The tribes are “pro jobs,” Peters says, but “Boeing has been unwilling to come and talk with us.”

This is a defining moment for Inslee: Where he sets this number, the FCR, will send another signal about his willingness to stand up to Boeing (after his support of $8.7 billion in taxpayer subsidies for the company last year). It will also show whether or not he’s serious about following through on his commitments to do battle on behalf of the environment, promises he ran on. So keep an eye out. And in the meantime, says University of Washington public-health professor Bill Daniell, don’t eat the fish near Gas Works Park.