Activists Urge EPA To Codify Use Of 'Conductivity' As Water Quality Measure

摘要

Environmentalists are urging EPA to launch a new national rulemaking codifying the agency's use of electrical conductivity, a measure of water salinity, as a way to protect streams and other waterbodies from the harmful effects of surface coal mining in Appalachian coalfields and possibly elsewhere. In more than 17,000 mass comments filed in response to EPA's controversial interim guidance on more strictly limiting the impacts of surface coal mining in the region, supporters of the Sierra Club and Earthjustice are urging EPA to formalize controversial provisions in the interim guidance that set numeric water quality limits on conductivity.