The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s trying to get states around the Great Lakes to use uniform standards to monitor water quality. But the EPA says the fact that different states use different methods doesn’t put anyone at risk. We have more from the Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie Hemphill:
Transcript
The Environmental Protection Agency says it’s trying to get states around the Great Lakes to use
uniform standards to monitor water quality. But the EPA says the fact that different states use
different methods doesn’t put anyone at risk. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Stephanie
Hemphill reports:
The agency is responding to a report from the Environmental Integrity Project. That group says
different states have different standards, and that means no one has a clear idea of how clean – or
dirty – our rivers and lakes really are.
Thomas Skinner is administrator of EPA’s Region Five. He says the Clean Water Act allows
each state to design its own program.
“It may be that some states are being overly protective or over protective of their citizens, and
that’s their right to do it. But if that’s the case, then that could explain some of the
inconsistencies. It doesn’t mean the states that have a different set of fish advisories are not
protecting their citizens; they’ve just chosen to go about it in a slightly different way.”
Skinner says the EPA asked the states seven years ago to use the same standards. He says the
states are gradually moving toward that goal.
For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.