Obama Appoints Ousted Ohio Water Official To Ohio River Valley Sanitation Commission

摘要

President Barack Obama appointed Ohio's former top water regulator, who was forced to retire in September 2013, to an interstate commission focused on water pollution control on the Ohio River. George Elmaraghy will join the Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation Commission (ORSANCO) as a federal appointee at its June 10 meeting. Elmaraghy's ouster from his job as the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency's surface water division chief followed what he said was nearly a year of directives from the governor's office pushing surface water staff to write permits according to coal industry demands (44 ER 2904, 9/27/13). ORSANCO, based in Cincinnati, operates programs to improve water quality in the Ohio River Basin; these include setting wastewater discharge standards, performing biological assessments and monitoring for the chemical and physical properties of the waterways.