WQ0040918_Comments_20190503

Clean
Water
for fs
North Carolina May 3, 2019
DWR Wastewater Permitting
Via email to publiccomments(@ncdenr.gov
Subject: Comments of Clean Water for North Carolina on "North Toe Mines"
Dear DWR Discharge Permitting Staff:
Clean Water for NC is a 501 c3 statewide science-based Environmental Justice organization with
members in over 60 NC counties. On behalf of our members and allies in Mitchell and Yancey
Counties, we are writing to call for permit provisions for the 6 Avery and Mitchell County mines
that will be significantly more protective of the Toe River for aquatic life, recreation, aesthetics
and as a reliable and safe secondary drinking water source for the town of Spruce Pine.
The current permits for these mines are significantly too weak to protect folks who might have
to drink water from the Toe River, but also fail to protect the river's aquatic life, and
recreational users from high turbidity (cloudiness), the highly caustic hydrofluoric acid which
has been spilled into the River before, and a variety of toxic metals likely to be in the mines'
wastewater.
The current permits for these mines are also inadequately protective of the River as a
secondary drinking water source. For to long, these mines have been allowed to pollute this
magnificent waterway, which belongs to the people and aquatic life of the Toe River region,
and has been treated instead as a wastewater pipe for a group of large mining operations that
supply quartz to high tech industries.
Specific weaknesses of these permits include:
1) As the new Water Quality Standards were approved by the EMC by November, 2014
and the USEPA by April, 2016, the implementation of the new numeric standards for
metals and the associated hardness instream data to calculate them, should have been
accomplished as part of the pre-permitting process, rather than issuing a draft that will
only start the process of collecting hardness data to calculate the dissolved metal
numeric standards for critical metals likely to be in the mines' discharges.

2) Fluoride and total suspended solids have a daily limit which is meaningless, though the
mines' discharges are only regulated on the basis of a weekly average and are only
actually measured MONTHLY, rendering the daily limit essentially meaningless. No
attention is being paid to the cumulative impact of these discharges; if more than one of
these facilities discharged at the daily maximum, the consequences for water quality
and aquatic life would be devastating.
3) As chloride levels downstream of one of these facilities have substantially violated
instream water quality standards, a discharge limit for chloride must be provided, and
chloride analyzed daily, rather than merely quarterly monitoring.
4) There must be specific standards and required sampling sufficient to assure that
"narrative standards" for protecting fishing, recreation, aquatic life, and aesthetics are
protected. Based on photos we have seen, the instream conditions frequently violate
the trout stream NC 10 NTU limit without any other sources contributing. The permit
must include a method for reliable and several times daily sampling and measurement
downstream of each of these mines, with stipulated penalties for violations, with
increasing violations for increasing opacity and/or frequency of exceedances, sufficient
to prevent ongoing occurrences.
5) If currently available stormwater data indicates a contribution of any chemical or
physical component that has at least a 50% chance of violating any instream WQ
standard, DWR should not wait for the expiration of the Stormwater General Permit to
require application for a specific permit for any facility which is documented as
contributing such pollutants.
6) We appreciate the reopener clauses in these permits for turbidity and other
parameters, but given the long delays that such a reopening process can entail, a more
precautionary approach of incorporating strict sample collection and analysis, frequent
visual inspection reports on equipment and emergency ponds, and photographic
evidence of river conditions should have been required in the permit.
Thank you very much for holding a public hearing for these permits, which we understand was
well-attended and in which most speakers called for more protective permit conditions. These
mining operations have had far too much freedom to degrade the North Toe River and impair
the conditions that protect the many uses and needs the River must be allowed to provide.
Yours sincerely,
Hope Taylor, MSPH, Exec. Director, Clean Water for North Carolina
hope(@cwfnc.org 919-401-9600