If the DEQ is as far behind as it claims, with written reports and clean-up plans, is it logical to assume that it will in any way protect the waterways should uranium mining be allowed in VA?
Sue Lindsey
Tuesday, June 17, 2008
ROANOKE (AP) | About 1,100 miles of Virginia's rivers and streams have been added to a list of polluted waters in the past two years, bringing the total to 10,600 miles, state environmental regulators said Monday.
The state Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) released its water quality report for this, which listed about 40 percent of the state's waters as polluted. All the major rivers, as well as the Chesapeake Bay, had "some impairment," DEQ spokesman Bill Hayden said.
"That number keeps getting larger, mainly because as we look around the state more thoroughly we find more," he said.
About one-third of the state's watersheds are assessed every two years. The agency has analyzed 95 percent of them.
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The state's polluted waters - which include rivers, lakes and estuaries - require a total of 1,677 cleanup plans, the agency said. Only a couple of hundred have been developed, Mr. Hayden said. "We're very, very far behind in writing these reports," Mr. Gerel said. (emphasis mine..SB)
The DEQ also added 3,300 acres of lakes to the impaired list, bringing the total in that category to 94,000 acres. In addition, 2,200 square miles of estuaries are listed as impaired.
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Read the full article here:
My apologies for the uneven formatting at the top of this post. After an hour of trying to make adjustments, I've run out of options and thus must leave it as it is. Sorry!
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