"Montana is famous for its waterways, speckled with sparkling high-alpine lakes and ribboned with trout-filled streams. It's also the birthplace of several major rivers, including the Missouri, and home to Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake east of the Mississippi. But now, the Montana Legislature, with the Environmental Protection Agency's backing as of October, is rolling back protections for these waters."
"When excessive nitrogen and phosphorus, generally from mining, municipal wastewater and agricultural operations, enter waterways, they can trigger a flurry of slimy green algal growth. This is more than just an eyesore: Such algal blooms deplete oxygen in the water - which can cause massive fish die-offs - choke off its depths from sunlight and release toxins capable of sickening humans who consume the tainted water."
"Water-quality standards are the objectives that each state or tribe sets, with the approval of the Environmental Protection Agency, to ensure that its waters are safe for human health and aquatic life. They dictate the state's environmental water policy regarding everything from mobilizing cleanup efforts to issuing permits to point-source polluters - entities that release wastewater into the environment through a pipe or a ditch."
Montana's waterways include high-alpine lakes, trout-filled streams, the headwaters of major rivers such as the Missouri, and Flathead Lake, the largest natural freshwater lake east of the Mississippi. The Montana Legislature, with Environmental Protection Agency approval as of October, is rolling back protections for those waters. Montana adopted numeric water-quality standards in 2014 for dissolved nitrogen and phosphorus in wadable streams and some river segments to limit nutrient pollution. Excess nitrogen and phosphorus from mining, municipal wastewater, and agriculture fuel algal blooms that deplete oxygen, cause fish die-offs, block sunlight, and release toxins harmful to humans. Water-quality standards set objectives for human health and aquatic life, guide cleanup efforts, and regulate permits for point-source polluters, either numerically or narratively.
Read at High Country News
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