Posted on Tue, Feb. 12, 2008

-- A new bill under consideration in the Mississippi Legislature could change the measuring stick for the lowest allowable water flow in the Pascagoula River, affecting the Richton salt dome project and hundreds of other entities that draw from the river.

Submitted by state Sen. Debbie Dawkins of Pass Christian, the bill says the standard measure of low water flow used by the state, 7Q10, is far too liberal, allowing the thirst of area projects to create drought conditions unsafe for wildlife in Pascagoula River waterways. Senate Bill 2890 calls on the Department of Environmental Quality and the Department of Wildlife, Fisheries and Parks to come up with a tighter standard for how low the river can go.

"I would like to see the state agencies that oversee water quality to recognize that there are some bad things going on. This is our way to mitigate these impacts," she said.

The 7Q10 measurement is a snapshot of a waterway's lowest flow measured during seven days in a 10-year period. It is a wastewater measurement, intended to keep humans safe from high levels of contaminants such as E. coli. It does not address what lives in the water, said Jake Schaefer, a freshwater fisheries biologist at the University of Southern Mississippi.

"Species are sensitive. What's safe for people is not what's safe for animals," he said.

The endangered Gulf sturgeon and Alabama shad swim upstream to lay eggs when freshwater levels are high, he said. The Pascagoula River is high in the spring and lower in the summer. Always keeping the river at 7Q10 to feed land projects may hurt spawning.

The request is not unreasonable, said Andrew Whitehurst, a biologist with the Mississippi Museum of Natural Science and the Department of Wildlife. Mississippi's neighbors use several of the 20 or 30 methods out there, he said.

The Chevron refinery in Pascagoula is a major user of the river, and would be rivaled by the salt dome project, which would pull 50 million gallons of water every day for five years to dissolve an underground cavern. The Department of Energy, the project's sponsor, is conducting further environmental assessments of using the Pascagoula River. Spokeswoman Megan Barnett said the new studies will include their analysis of 7Q10 and other methods.