Wine Wastewater Part 2
Wine Wastewater Part 2. I'm Greg Martin with today's Fruit Grower Report.
Wastewater is a by product of wine making and there are a number of ways to deal with it. Now the DOE has proposed issuing general permits to wineries to help protect water quality. DOE's Water Quality Specialist, Chelsea Desforges recently presented some of DOE's ideas for the permit to a group of winery owners.
DESFORGES: We also put together an external team of winery owners, sewage treatment plant operators and various wine association members. This group has already met once and will provide prospective from the industry. This will help insure our permit is as user friendly as possible. These members all responded to our request for volunteers last year.
She gave the group an overview of the work that has already been done on the permit.
DESFORGES: In May of last year we created a winery permit general web page and listserve to provide updates on permit activities. In April last year we began meeting internally to brainstorm ideas for the permit and in December we had our first external stakeholder meeting to prepare for this conference.
She says the hope to release a preliminary draft of the permit by July of this year. It will also initiate an informal 45-day comment period.
DESFORGES: This is an extra step in the progress that is not required by law but because this is a new permit we feel it is necessary to give the industry extra opportunity for review. There will also be several regional workshops to discuss the preliminary draft during this time.
A formal draft is then expect in November with another comment period. Visit ecy.wa.gov for more information.
That's today's Fruit Grower Report. I'm Greg Martin on the Ag Information Network of the West.
