State environmental agency halts rewrite of water quality standards
A fishing boat glides along the glassy surface of Church Slough along the Flathead River. (Casey Kreider/Daily Inter Lake FILE)
Three years into a legislatively mandated effort to adopt looser standards for two nutrients abundant in Montana waterways, the state has halted rulemaking on the contentious effort.
Following a hearing on Monday at which stakeholders on multiple sides of the issue expressed displeasure with the Montana Department of Environmental Quality’s proposal, the agency announced it has no immediate plans to advance new water quality standards as required by a bill the Republican-controlled Legislature passed in 2021. Environmentalists described DEQ’s proposed rules as unscientific and unprotective, while sewer operators and industrial dischargers deemed them difficult to understand and financially and technologically unattainable.
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