TOPEKA, Kan., Sept. 18, 2000 (The Topeka Capital-Journal) -- In a show of force, Kansas farmers and ranchers packed a hearing room to overflowing Wednesday evening to protest water quality standards proposed by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
"This is what they do when you threaten their existence," said Dee Likes, executive vice president of the Kansas Livestock Association, surveying the crowd of about 1,000 people who came from all over the state for a hearing on the regulations at the Kansas Museum of History in Topeka.
"A lot of these cowboys came in mad and scared," Likes said.
EPA officials insist the farmers and ranchers have been scared by misinformation about the proposed regulations, which the agency issued in July in response to a lawsuit filed by two environmental groups --- the state chapter of the Sierra Club and the Kansas Natural Resource Council.
Contrary to what many farmers and ranchers believe, the standards won't be used to regulate the quality of water in livestock ponds, said Gale Hutton, director of the Water, Wetlands and Pesticide Division of the EPA's regional office in Kansas City, Kan.
"It's not the intent of EPA to regulate farm ponds --- period," Hutton said during a question and answer session that preceded a formal public hearing on the proposed regulations.
Still, the audience was skeptical.
Stan Ahlerich, a Cowley County farmer and president of the Kansas Farm Bureau, asked Hutton to honor his pledge by shaking on it.
"I'll absolutely shake your hand on that," Hutton said as he reached over a table to grasp Ahlerich's hand.
But after the meeting, Ahlerich said the ceremonial handshake hadn't allayed his fears.
"When I was shaking his hand, he put a qualifier on it," Ahlerich said. "They cannot say that all farm ponds are off the table."
City officials have different but no less urgent concerns about the standards.
Don Moler, executive director of the Kansas League of Municipalities, estimated that the cost of stream-flow studies that would be required under the standards would be nearly $200 million.
"We are asking the EPA to use common sense and withdraw these regulations, which will offer no appreciable benefit and result in tremendous cost to Kansas taxpayers," Moler said at a news conference before the hearing.
EPA officials say the proposed regulations are necessary to bring the state in compliance with the federal Clean Water Act. They say under the law, 1,400 rivers, streams and lakes in Kansas are presumed to be safe for swimming and fishing unless studies prove otherwise.
Critics charge that common sense is all that is needed to determine that many of the rivers and streams on the EPA's list aren't suitable for swimming because they are dry most of the year.
Pointing to an enlarged photograph of the dry bed of the South Fork of the Pottawatomie River in the southeast Kansas county of Anderson, Jere White, said, "Unless your recreation is rock collecting, I'm not sure what you would be doing in it."
White, executive director of the Kansas Corn Growers Association and the Kansas Grain Sorghum Producers Association, is the spokesman for a newly formed coalition called Kansans for Commonsense Water Policy. He said the group would probably file a lawsuit to stop the implementation of the new standards if they aren't significantly changed.
Members of the state's congressional delegation issued statements criticizing the proposed rules.
Several members of the Kansas Legislature appeared at Wednesday's hearing to register complaints.
"We have some of the strictest water quality laws in the nation, yet we're getting picked on," said Rep. Bruce Larkin, D-Baileyville.
Charles Benjamin, a Lawrence attorney who represents the Sierra Club, said the environmental group also is prepared to sue if the EPA doesn't move fast enough to implement the regulations.
"We ask folks to consider how they would feel if their children got sick playing in dirty streams, or if there were no living creatures for them to marvel at and learn from," Benjamin said a prepared statement. "We believe that all of us want the same thing for future generations, and we'll be able to work this out."
The EPA's Hutton said he didn't know how long it would take the EPA to finalize the standards. But he pledged that all written comments received by Oct. 16, as well as those made at Wednesday's pubic hearing and another scheduled for tonight in Dodge City, would be carefully considered.
"Every one of them is going to be read," he said.
© Copyright 2000 The Topeka Capital-Journal via Bell&Howell Information and Learning Company; All Rights Reserved.
