EPA Gives Oregon Water Report A Mixed Review
SALEM, Ore. — Oregon’s 2010 water quality report has earned a mixed review from the U.S. EPA.
This week, the EPA gave the report a thumbs up for listing nine-hundred and seventy places where rivers, streams, lakes and reservoirs are polluted. That includes waters where fish tested positive for mercury.
Jennifer Wigal manages Oregon’s water quality standards and assessment programs.
Wigal: “We all want to be able to eat fish that are free from contamination and so that is one area of our list that we have updated.”
The EPA gave Oregon a thumbs down for failing to list more than one-thousand other polluted water segments.
States use their lists to prioritize clean-up plans and to determine how much pollution industries, cities and towns may discharge to surface waters.
Copyright 2012 Northwest News Network
Related Stories:

Workforce training program to offer professional development for caretakers
A pilot apprenticeship program for caretakers may soon help more people develop workforce skills.

How is the implementation of residential zoning changes going in Tacoma?
The city of Tacoma loosened restrictions on what kinds of housing can be built in its neighborhoods. Now, people can build duplexes, triplexes and other multi-unit dwellings in areas that used to be only for single-family homes.
The city’s Home in Tacoma initiative was implemented to help address the region’s housing crisis. The flexibility of more units on single lots is meant to vary the kinds of homes people can rent or buy. By doing so, the city hopes that will decrease costs.

A ‘perfect’ season for Washington’s sweet cherries turns sour because of deportation fears
Cherry growers say the threat of deportations under President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown is keeping the migrant workforce they rely on this time of year from showing up to work. They describe an increasingly urgent labor crisis that could leave cherries rotting in the field, and farmers holding the bill.