FRANKFORT — With the Kentucky River as backdrop, Kentucky poet laureate Silas House and other environmental advocates spoke out Tuesday against a bill that would limit state regulation of water pollution.
House, a bestselling novelist and essayist, joined advocates and leaders from the Kentucky Waterways Alliance, the Kentucky Resources Council, the Kentucky Conservation Committee and the Kentucky chapter of the Sierra Club to speak against Senate Bill 89, sponsored by Sen. Scott Madon, R-Pineville.
Madon and other lawmakers have touted SB 89 as a way to relieve industry, ranging from coal mining to housing construction, of bureaucracy and permitting barriers required by the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet. Environmental advocates have warned the bill could open the door to more pollution of groundwater, small streams and wetlands. The secretary of the Energy and Environment Cabinet has expressed “grave concerns” about the legislation.
House told those gathered along the river in Frankfort that he rejected the argument he’s heard from SB 89 proponents that the bill would allow industry to pollute only ephemeral streams, or waterways that don’t have running water year round.
“This bill would allow them to pollute any waterway because our creeks and rivers, no matter how small, are all connected,” House said. “Ask yourself: why would we want to pollute any stream? Those ephemeral streams matter too. They go into our groundwater and our drinking water. When polluted with toxic chemicals, they would jeopardize the health of everyone.”
Madon, when first presenting this bill in a legislative committee last month, said the bill would align state water regulation with the federal standard. Federal water protections were significantly curtailed by a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2023, essentially limiting the federal government’s ability to police water pollution for bodies of water and wetlands that don’t have a continuous surface connection to larger, regulated waterways. That ruling led to the Biden administration weakening federal rules on water pollution.
SB 89 modifies the definition of “waters of the commonwealth” by removing “all rivers, streams, creeks, lakes, ponds, impounding reservoirs, springs, wells, marshes, and all other bodies of surface or underground water, natural or artificial.” The state definition is altered instead to refer to the federal definition of “navigable waters.” The bill also sets bonding requirements for coal companies seeking permits for long-term treatment of water leaving mine sites.
Audrey Ernstberger, a lobbyist for the legal group Kentucky Resources Council, said SB 89 could come up for a vote before the House Natural Resources and Energy Committee during the committee’s regularly scheduled weekly meeting on Thursday. If the committee passes the bill, it could potentially be voted on by the entire House of Representatives and be sent to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear for his consideration.
Ernstberger said she’s hearing concern about the bill from some lawmakers and others in the Capitol who want to amend it. “Instead of taking a complete sledgehammer to our current framework, approaching it with a more nuanced and delicate approach,” Ernstberger said.
Ernstberger said the current version of SB 89 impacts all water quality programs and regulation the Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet oversees. A proposed change to the bill that the Kentucky Resources Council is floating to lawmakers, Ernstberger said, would change state law so that specific permits given to industry to allow “discharges into state waters could rely on the weakened federal standard, but the definition of protected state waters would remain unchanged.
That way, the cabinet could still step in and to protect waters in specific cases “as long as the secretary finds that it’s needed to abate or alleviate direct pollution that will harm water or downstream communities.”
“It tries to address the overregulation problems that certain industries have cited, while also providing reasonable protections to our waterways,” Ernstberger said.
Opponents of the bill have also stressed SB 89 could be an economic burden on already struggling water utilities by adding costs of grappling with more water pollution.
A fact sheet from the Kentucky Geological Survey states about 416,000 Kentuckians use water wells or springs and more than 1.5 million Kentuckians are served by over 100 public water systems that rely on groundwater. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency previously estimated 65% of Kentucky’s 79,752 miles of streams and rivers are ephemeral or intermittent.
Madison Mooney, a Martin County resident working for a nonprofit supporting Appalachian communities, told the gathered crowd she was always told growing up in Eastern Kentucky not to drink the local tap water or play in creeks or streams for too long. Now an adult, she said she understood “how important it is to protect our waterways.”
“Parts of our Eastern Kentucky almost always get left behind. More water pollution means higher costs for all. The state, cities, water operators and consumers will have to pay more to ensure clean drinking water. Higher costs for treating water would double the struggle for funding our already failing water systems,” Mooney said.
Mooney told reporters about the challenges of trying to stay ahead of aging and failing drinking water and wastewater infrastructure in Martin County, especially after widespread flooding last month further damaged water infrastructure.
“I’m sick of my county and my community and my people always fearing what’s going to happen next and what is happening to our water at large,” Mooney said.
The crowd gathered at a boathouse that was co-founded by Gerry James, the deputy director of the Sierra Club’s Outdoors for All campaign and a Frankfort resident. James said the goals for the boathouse include being an environmental education center and an entry point into the river for paddle sports.
SB 89, he said, “threatens our pastimes” such as paddling in the river.
“What I’ve seen all across Kentucky is a passion for our water. People love recreating in our waters from fly fishing to paddling to just swimming,” James said. “If there’s pollution upstream, it’s all coming downstream.”
Correction: The headline of this story previously misstated Senate Bill 89 as House Bill 89. Kentucky poet laureate Silas House speaks against Senate Bill 89 alongside opponents of the bill. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Liam Niemeyer)
This article is republished under a Creative Commons license from Kentucky Lantern, which is part of States Newsroom, a network of news bureaus supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. Kentucky Lantern maintains editorial independence. Contact Editor Jamie Lucke for questions: info@kentuckylantern.com. Follow Kentucky Lantern on Facebook and Twitter.
Liam Niemeyer covers government and policy in Kentucky and its impacts throughout the Commonwealth for the Kentucky Lantern. He most recently spent four years reporting award-winning stories for WKMS Public Radio in Murray.
