Mercury yet again

[Hoser John]

More costly stupidity in kalif,
This is a message from the State Water Resources Control Board.
To All Interested Parties:



State and Regional Water Board staff is developing a statewide water quality control program for mercury (Statewide Mercury Program) that will include mercury water quality objectives and a mercury control program for reservoirs. This message provides an update on the progress of the Statewide Mercury Program by describing outreach and development efforts during the past year and next steps. Blue underlined text indicates links to new information added to the Statewide Mercury Program website.



Events during the past year included:

· Stakeholder focus group meetings. The purpose of the outreach and focus group meetings was to obtain early stakeholder input about options for water quality objectives and implementation actions. Stakeholder meetings held between February and October 2014 included:

o Reservoir owners and operators

o Environment and environmental justice advocates

o Municipal and industrial wastewater and storm water agencies

o State and federal land managers

o Public health agencies

o Local stakeholders

· Meetings with Tribes. Water Board staff met with Tribes to obtain their input in July 2014. In addition, staff presented at the Tribal EPA conference in October 2014.

· Tribes Fish Use Study. Dr. Fraser Shilling, a University of California, Davis, researcher funded by the State Water Board and USEPA, completed the Tribes Fish Use Study. Dr. Shilling presented study results to members of the State Board in September 2014.

· Reservoir focus group meetings. Water Board staff met with reservoir owners and operators in March, May, and September 2014, and January 2015, to develop selection criteria for reservoir water chemistry studies and pilot tests. The most recent meeting included a guest speaker, Professor Alex Horne, from the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Horne’s presentation provided an overview of in-reservoir dissolved oxygen and mercury management options.

· Conference presentations. Water Board staff made presentations to several groups to provide a review of mercury cycling and bioaccumulation processes in reservoirs and potential source control and reservoir management strategies to reduce fish mercury levels, including:

o California Lake Management Society (October 2014). Half of this conference was devoted to mercury cycling and management in reservoirs.

o Delta Tributaries Mercury Council (August 2014)

o California-Nevada American Fisheries Society conference (March 2014)



Next steps include:

· Continue reservoir focus group meetings to develop criteria for selecting pilot projects;

· Prepare draft staff reports to submit to scientific peer review and make draft staff reports available on the Water Board website for informal public review;

· Prepare documents for formal public review; and

· Hold public workshops.



Water Board staff will continue to provide informational updates to the public through emails and the Statewide Mercury Program website. For more information, please email: MercuryProject@waterboards.ca.gov



Thank you for your interest in this project.

[russau]

John Thanks for posting this! atleast theyre "allowing" stake holders to be part of their "one sided" witchhunt! theres to many "allowed" greenie groups compared to maybe 1 miners group! it seams that the biased gubermint is setting us up again!