WFLP’s Erica Peterson and I tweeted similar thoughts at about the same time at last night’s EPA public meeting on a Floyds Fork cleanup plan they are working on.
Erica: They’re spending a lot of time talking about theoretically engaging
#floydsfork stakeholders. Why not just engage them here and now?Me:
#floydsfork process: interviews, focus groups, open houses, scoring meetings, website scoring. Seems to limit public interaction.
This was the second meeting held by the EPA and Kentucky Division of Water over what the Clean Water Act calls a total maximum daily load plan for Floyds Fork. The first one was in August. The plan, when completed, will determine how much pollution the waterway can take and still meet water quality standards. Some 44 miles of the waterway now fails to meet the standard for nutrients, such as nitrogen and phosphorus.
The conversation was mostly one way — government officials to the public. And officials solicited questions on cards, and then decided which questions to answer.
The Kentucky Division of Water announced a public participation process that will presumably take place in the coming months. It appears to be designed to limit the public from interacting with each other, instead basing it on confidential interviews by University of Kentucky professors, and possibly focus groups and an open house.
Perhaps the officials weariness can be understood. The last time the state sought community input on Floyds Fork, its stake-holder process blew up when Floyds Fork Environmental Association sued the participants.
But I wonder how many meetings the public will attend and how much buy-in the officials will get if they don’t give the public a chance to speak?
The real news of the night was an announcement of water quality targets that will be used to help allocate pollution among various sources, like sewage treatment plants and storm water runoff. But it was impossible for me and I presume most people in the audience to tell what those numbers meant in terms of future cleanup requirements.
One state official said the targets are not much different from monitored levels of nitrogen and phosphorous, and that Floyds Fork really isn’t that polluted after all. That prompted someone to shout out something like this: Why have the state and EPA made Floyds Fork a priority?
Good question.
State officials also said that the process would not result in any new rules on farms or growth and development. That pretty much leaves MSD with its treatment plants as the target for potential pollution cuts.
To engage in the public participation process, send an email to floydsfork@ky.gov or floydsfork@epa.gov. Ask questions or ask to be part of a focus group or be interviewed. Officials also said there’s a facebook page, here.
Go there and “like” it and you can follow the action.
The main question lingering in my mind is whether this process will result in bringing Floyds Fork into compliance. State officials have been unable to identify any waterway in the state where TMDL process has done that. Perhaps the best that can be expected, from a water quality perspective, is that sewage might be better managed in the future, as population grows in the Floyds Fork watershed, and the public may become more aware of the link between water quality and quality of life, voluntarily take steps to reduce its pollution impacts.