Tuesday morning at 8:15 a.m., HF1000 will be heard in the Environment and Natural Resources Policy and Finance committee.
The committee hearing will be livestreamed via the Minnesota House's feed (Watch us Live) and The Uptake's MN House Live Channel.
Written by Hibbing Democrat Carly Melin, the bill would prohibit applying a wild rice water quality standard until the commissioner of the Pollution Control Agency adopts rules to establish criteria for designating waters subject the standard.
Here's the language in the bill:
A bill for an act relating to environment; prohibiting application of wild rice quality standards until certain conditions are met.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
Section 1. WILD RICE WATER QUALITY STANDARDS.
(a) Until the commissioner of the Pollution Control Agency adopts the rules to establish criteria for designating waters subject to a wild rice water quality standard as required under Laws 2011, First Special Session chapter 2, article 4, section 32, paragraph (b), and adopts the rule as required under Laws 2011, First Special Session chapter 2, article 4, section 32, paragraph (a), designating waters containing natural beds of wild rice that are subject to a wild rice water quality standard and designating the specific times of year during which the standard applies, the commissioner shall not:
(1) apply the wild rice water quality standard for sulfate in class 4A waters to any waters, including incorporating the standard or any requirements based on the standard within any permits, compliance schedules, orders, or other control documents; or
(2) list waters containing natural beds of wild rice as impaired for sulfate under section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act, United States Code, title 33, section 1313.
(b) For the purposes of this section, "waters containing natural beds of wild rice" has the meaning given in Laws 2011, First Special Session chapter 2, article 4, section 32, paragraph (b).
Last week, John Myers reported about a closely related bill (HF 853) in the Duluth News Tribune article, Minnesota lawmakers introduce another bill to thwart wild rice water rules.
Here's the language of HF853 (Wild rice water quality standard application prohibited until conditions are met) which has been referred to the Mining and Outdoor Wrecks committee:
A bill for an act relating to environment; prohibiting application of wild rice water quality
standards until certain conditions are met.
BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF MINNESOTA:
Section 1. WILD RICE WATER QUALITY STANDARDS.
(a) Until the commissioner of the Pollution Control Agency adopts the rules required under Laws 2011, First Special Session chapter 2, article 4, section 32, designating waters containing natural beds of wild rice that are subject to wild rice water quality standards, the commissioner shall not:
(1) apply the wild rice water quality standard for sulfate in class 4A waters to any waters, including incorporating the standard or any requirements based on the standard within any permits, compliance schedules, orders, or other control documents; or
(2) list waters containing natural beds of wild rice as impaired for sulfate under section 303(d) of the federal Clean Water Act, United States Code, title 33, section 1313.
(b) For the purposes of this section, "waters containing natural beds of wild rice" has the meaning given in Laws 2011, First Special Session chapter 2, article 4, section 32, paragraph (b).
Authored by Jason Metsa (DFL-Virginia), the bill is not scheduled to be heard in Mining and Outdoor Wrecks this week.
Myers reported the dirty details:
The bill would prohibit the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency from listing wild rice waters and applying the state's 40-year-old sulfate standard for wild rice until that standard is upheld by a current scientific review and re-adopted by the agency.
The bill specifically prevents the PCA from including the 10 parts-per-million sulfate standard to protect wild rice in any industrial permit issued until the ongoing sulfate study and reassessment is complete.
The PCA is nearing the end of a multiyear effort to determine whether the sulfate standard is needed to protect wild rice and, if so, what lakes and rivers the standard should apply to.
Northern Minnesota lawmakers have complained in recent weeks that the PCA has been including the sulfate standard in draft permits for mining companies even though the evaluation of the standard, ordered by lawmakers in 2011, is not yet complete.
Some mining industry leaders recently told Iron Range lawmakers that their ability to compete with a glut of cheap, foreign iron ore and finished steel could be compromised if Minnesota enforces the sulfate standard.
But Steve Morse, executive director of the Minnesota Environmental Partnership, said the bill is an end run around scientific review of wild rice protections. Similar legislation proposed in 2011 was panned by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as a legislative overreach and a likely violation of the federal Clean Water Act. Lawmakers can't simply undo water quality regulations already adopted under the act, it was noted.
"This legislation would roll back current water quality standards,'' Morse said in a statement. "We think our wild rice and our water deserve better — rules based on fact, not suspended through power politics. Our wild rice legacy depends on it." . . . .
Wild rice is not only delicious, but a significant part of Ojibwe culture.
Photo: A couple of canoes glide through beds of wild rice. Photo credit, University of Minnesota, National Center for Earth-Surface Dynamics.
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