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submitted to the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration as required by the Water Pollution Control Act of 1965, a Federal Act, and were accepted about ten months later by the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration. These standards are now State and Federal standards and are enforceable by State or Federal Law. Even at this early date, the State, through the Division of Water Resources and the Water Resources Board is in the preliminary stages of revising the standards to make them more applicable to the waters which they control.

In the section of the law, Article 5A, which governs water pollution of the State, the program is one geared to a permit system. By this, it is meant that the enforcement of the laws pertaining to the quality of the waters of the State of West Virginia is geared to a permit system covering all discharges to the waters of the State. In Article 5A under part 3, Section 5, the statement is made that it shall be unlawful for any person, until the Department's Permit therefore has been granted to allow sewage, industrial wastes or other wastes, etc., to be discharged into the waters of the State. There are some four criteria here governing the need for permits. It should be stated that these permits normally are considered to cover some sort of disposal system or some sort of outlet into the waters of the State from some alleged source of liquid. For this reason, the control of siltation in the streams of the State of West Virginia is somewhat hazy in its enforcement. By this, it is meant that, for instance, a timbering operation or a strip mine operation can hardly be called a disposal system. Also, in most cases, the discharges from a timbering operation, from highway construction, or in another instance from strip mines, the discharges are caused by rainfall. When there is no rain, there is no discharge. This is somewhat different from a disposal system, say from the City of Charleston, wherein the sewage throughout the City is collected, passes through a treatment system, and the treated effluent is then discharged to the river. This is pure and simple--a disposal system. The same thing is true in industry, in the various industrial facilities, where the wastes are collected, treated in treatment facilities and the treated discharge enters the waters of the State.

In these instances, such as municipalities and the industrial facilities, it is a fairly simple problem to obtain samples of these effluents at about any time that we feel we want samples or that we need samples to determine the quality of this effluent. On the other hand, even if we could consider a timbering operation or highway construction project or a strip mine as a disposal system, as the one I mentioned earlier where there is no natural flow say from a spring or some other water source that we could think of, it is not always possible to get samples from the sources. This means that we would have to wait for a rain to come and we would then go through and take our samples to obtain information as to the quality of the discharge from these so called facilities. It is granted that in cases of severe sedimentation the evidence is in the stream bed, in fact it may be evidenced that there is no longer a stream bed, the stream bed is filled with silt. The evidence is there, however, the proof, as we have been exposed to proving things in the law as it now stands, would be quite difficult to show in saying exactly where this material came from, unless we could obtain samples from the source to

show this.

This is a pre-requisite for us in our pollution cases, against what we consider the normal disposal facilities, such as industrial and municipal discharges. If, in these cases, we feel that the stream is being polluted and we desire to show that it is being polluted, then we must obtain samples of the stream above the source, below the source, and samples of the source to show that this specific source is causing the problem. It is believed that this would be very difficult to do in many cases of siltation in the streams of West Virginia. A different approach to this would be to remove or divide the water pollution control responsibility in the law. In other words, as has been done in the new Reclamation Section. The Reclamation Division is responsible, not only for the many duties of reclamation, it is also responsible for sources of stream pollution from these reclamation areas. This includes siltation. A similar trend into the, say agriculture aspects of the State, or into the timbering aspects of the State, wherein the responsible agencies that exist there now would be also responsible for the water pollution caused by siltation from these different types of operation, and not necessarily tie the operation in with a permit system on disposal facilities, under Article 5A of Chapter 20.

In summarizing the water pollution aspects of siltation in the State of West Virginia, as far as the Division of Water Resources, and its activities under Article 5A, Chapter 20, is concerned, we do not feel at this time that we have a clear-cut authority to control the pollution caused by the operation of timbering, agriculture, reclamation, strip mining, and these various sources of siltation in the streams. While we are submitting new legislation for consideration by the Legislature of the coming January 1969 session, at this time, we have not gone into the problem caused by siltation of the streams of West Virginia. The Division of Water Resources is cognizant of the problems of pollution of the streams caused by siltation and feels that corrective action must be taken to alleviate these problems. The question of how this is to be done is certainly open to many approaches, and the Division of Water Resources would be most happy to aid wherever it can.

STATEMENT ON PROCEDURES, POLICIES & PROBLEMS

U. S. SOIL CONSERVATION SERVICE

Robert Quilliam

State Conservationist

The Soil Conserva

The U. S. Soil Conservation Service is an action agency providing assistance to Soil Conservation Districts and other governmental subdivisions and private individuals throughout the state. We also cooperate with other State and Federal agencies. tion Service furnishes technical assistance on conservation measures and cost-shares for flood prevention and other purposes in Watershed and Resource Conservation and Development projects.

(Mr. Clay Hurt, Resource Conservationist, then presented a slide program showing what the SCS is doing, the scope of their activities, and assistance.)

The SCS aids private individuals in all phases of conservation planning, good land use and water management, forestry, fish and wildlife conservation, and flood prevention.

We consider two of the major causes of water pollution in West Virginia to be: (1) Mining the acid water released into streams and associated runoff from surrounding areas as a result of mining operations, (2) Sediment amounts to more tonnage than all other

combined pollutants.

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Mining and industrial work closely associated with mines may create a major sediment problem, as well as critical erosion on farm land and urban areas.

We cooperate with the Department of Natural Resources and other agencies in planning and carrying out revegetation work on mined

areas.

The SCS is pleased to hear that other agencies are growing more aware of, and placing more emphasis on sediment problems. At times in the past, we have felt that SCS and Districts have been pretty much alone in trying to combat sediment. For many years, we have been active in the field in assisting landowners in strip cropping, pasture planting, forest tree planting, stream bank stabilization, and other practices to control sediment.

To indicate our assistance to district cooperators on wildlife practices, in 1968 fiscal year, with Soil Conservation Service assistance. 544 fish ponds were stocked, 2,400 acres of wildlife habitat developed (wildlife feed areas, etc.), 15 acres wildlife wetland developed, and

31 wildlife watering hole facilities constructed by Districts and landowners. In addition, watershed programs carried out by Districts present real opportunity for further participation by State and other agencies.

We can

The SCS can share 50 per cent of the cost of beneficial water storage for wildlife development. Also, the SCS can mitigate. plan wildlife water structures, fish ladders, and other devices and facilities to mitigate damages that may be done by flood prevention projects.

On Upper Deckers Creek in Preston County, two structures for waterfowl habitat have been installed primarily for ducks. These were constructed on a cost-sharing basis with SCS funds contributing.

Figures given this morning on channel work carried out in Hampshire County are not representative, if compared to the statewide program for that year. These two counties, Hampshire and Pocahontas, had extra money allocated by ASCS to carry out some special projects for flood damage restoration.

Because of the extreme flooding in Hardy and Pocahontas Counties, this area was declared a disaster area and special funds were granted by the Federal Government specifically for flood restoration measures. Consequently, considerable channeling resulted. During 1967, 60 per cent of channel work that was done in West Virginia under ACP was done in these two counties.

As for the SCS, we are committed to broad conservation use and we will certainly be happy to participate in studying and developing conservation practice standards that will more nearly do the total resource conservation and development job.

62-365 O 71 pt. 3 20

STATEMENT FOR INTER-AGENCY STREAM DISTURBANCE SYMPOSIUM

Jack Busfield

State Soil Conservation Committee

I would like to start out by visualizing a dogleg stream going through a man's farm. If this man were a cooperator in the SCS District and came to the SCS stating he would like to have this stream straightened out, the work unit agent would go check the stream to see if this would be feasible. If the agent checked it, and it was feasible, the question comes to my mind, "Who can tell the man who owns the stream, he can or cannot do it?"

Martin Lugar, I understand, now is in the process of getting a document out to be presented to the Legislature dealing with this very problem. Mr. Lugar is from the University and has been working on water resources law for years. I do hope that it can be presented and acted on before industrialists and other influential groups can get to it before it gets into the Legislature. Nobody has yet had the courage to put it in the Legislature and stand behind it. But, until one truth is enacted into Law: who owns the water, stream banks, and trees--who can do, or what can be done with them; until this is documented by strict law the problems will always exist.

I'd like to point out some of the things we are trying to do to get clear streams for everyone concerned. The State Soil Conservation Committee, with assistance from other agencies, has various phases to establish clean streams throughout West Virginia by preventing pollution, sedimentation by proven land practices. We have projects in Nicholas and Webster Counties and also in the northern panhandle, but it is a slow process--everyone says you can't do this and you can't do that--it's like running into a stone wall.

One of West Virginia's largest coal companies was always in trouble with the Conservation Commission. They operated in the vicinity of Muddlety Creek. The SCS is getting the company around to our way of thinking and in a few years the problems will be eliminated and you will not recognize Muddlety Creek. It will cost approximately $100,000. Our idea is to establish sedimentation areas below strip mining areas. Nicholas County will finally end up with clean streams if they accept this plan on Muddlety.

While serving on the Task Force of Potomac for two years, in my traveling by plane to and from Washington one can see many, many instances of erosion and we face the problem of control of sedimentation below large housing construction projects, strip mining or land moving projects. Perhaps sedimentation basins would be an answer.

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