Activist Suit Could Test EPA Process For Judging State Water Quality Limits

A planned environmentalist lawsuit over EPA's alleged failure to properly review Oregon's landmark proposed revisions to narrative water quality criteria for toxics, citing violations of a number of federal statutes, could force the agency to speed up its reviews of state water quality criteria nationally, activist sources say. While environmentalists are generally supportive of EPA's mandate last year that Oregon set stringent criteria to protect Native American populations that consume large amounts of fish, Northwest Environmental Advocates (NEA) charges EPA...