by Carla Klein, Chapter Program Director
Protecting water quality in Missouri often comes down to what laws are on the books and how those laws are interpreted when rules and regulations are written by the regulatory agencies. One critical aspect of environmental protection is being involved in the rule-making process. The Department of Natural Resources (DNR) holds what are called “stakeholder” meetings when they are proposing new Missouri environmental regulations. Stakeholder meetings are very technical, long and time consuming, but having effective and enforceable laws to protect the health and safety of Missouri communities and protect our natural heritage is essential. These stakeholder meetings are supposed to include everyone impacted by the decisions. However, they are attended mainly by industry representatives paid to represent their company’s interests.
The Sierra Club is often asked to attend stakeholder meetings and represent the interests of our 12,000 Missouri members and other citizens of Missouri who care about protecting our natural resources. These stakeholder meetings are held in Jefferson City during the 9 to 5 workday, so citizen input is very limited. The Sierra Club office has the advantage of being centrally located in Columbia. Staff or volunteers can attend many of the stakeholder meetings and help insure that the interests of Missouri’s citizens are not pushed aside by industry.
Sierra Club members and staff attend stakeholder meetings and hearings, participate in work groups and monitor the rule making process to ensure that the public’s interest is represented. |
Our staff and dedicated volunteers also work to inform our members and others of the critical rule changes being proposed. We keep individuals and other organizations informed of the progress, and alert them to opportunities to have input in the process. Such was the case this week at the Clean Water Commission hearing (see related article on the hearings). Sierra Club members alerted our friends in the National Scenic Riverways and urged them to travel to Jefferson City to voice their concern for proposed rule changes that would weaken water quality protections in Missouri.
Carla Klein, Sierra Club Chapter Director, is a member of the state’s Solid Waste Rule Revision Workgroup. This group is working to rewrite the siting provisions for new landfills in the state in response to an industry lawsuit challenging the Department of Natural Resource’s denial of landfill permits.
All landfills will eventually leak. After years of accumulating various hazardous household wastes and other toxins, the leachate (toxic chemical soup) that leaks out can contaminate ground water and drinking water sources if sited poorly. Landfill engineering firms are trying to assert that there is no problem too big for them to engineer around — caves, sinkholes, and losing streams should not prevent a landfill from being built. Sierra Club staff and volunteer leaders will participate in the process and argue vehemently to ensure that landfill siting restrictions are not weakened to allow landfills in sensitive karst regions of the state. Carla is working with experts such as Tom Aley of the Ozarks Underground Laboratory, concerned citizens groups in the Ozarks and government officials in Greene County in Southwest Missouri to make sure that concerns for protecting the health of citizens and the fragile Ozarks region are heard. .