Topeka — Kansas' first environmental secretary is so alarmed by a water quality bill in the Legislature this year that he has returned to the Statehouse on a crusade to kill it.
Now 85 years old, Dwight Metzler rolls into legislative hearing rooms in a wheelchair and states his case.
"It violates federal law," Metzler has told the House and Senate committees handling the bill. "Even more importantly, it violates the natural laws of chemistry and biology."
Neither committee listened.
Both the Senate and the House have endorsed the measure, which orders the Kansas Department of Health and Environment to reclassify streams for pollution control purposes and tells the agency how to do it.
Metzler didn't disclose his credentials to the committees when he testified, and their chairmen weren't aware of them.
But he served from 1974 to 1979 as the state's first KDHE secretary, under Democratic Gov. Robert Docking and Republican Gov. Bob Bennett.
Before that, he was deputy commissioner of health for the state of New York under then-Gov. Nelson Rockefeller, following service as chief engineer for the Kansas State Board of Health.
Altogether, he has spent more than 50 years advising governors on water quality.
And he is a fifth-generation Kansan, raised on a farm outside of Carbondale before earning a bachelor's degree from the Kansas University and a master's from Harvard.
'He's brilliant'
Sen. Paul Feleciano, a 29-year legislator, remembers Metzler as KDHE secretary and wishes his colleagues would listen.
"He's probably one of the most notable water experts in the country," said Feleciano, D-Wichita. "He's brilliant."
"I didn't agree with his testimony, but I certainly respect the person," Sen. Robert Tyson, R-Parker, chairman of the Senate Natural Resources Committee, said of Metzler.
The bill's supporters, including 21 agriculture groups, contend it represents common-sense water policy and would let the state concentrate its pollution control efforts on streams that need it.
But Metzler said it would violate the goal of the federal Clean Water Act that all streams be classified as "primary" safe for swimming unless a state can prove otherwise.
Under the Kansas legislation, some streams would remain classified as "secondary," or not meant for swimming, until the review and reclassification process set out in the bill is complete. Landowners could opt for secondary classification for segments of waterways that lie in their property.
'Mean-spirited legislation'
Metzler said he was troubled that legislators would tell the KDHE to violate federal law.
"I've worked with the Kansas Legislature for over 50 years and I've never seen as mean-spirited of legislation," Metzler said. "Certainly, reclassification is needed. The only way to reclassify is to follow the laws of the state and federal government."
The proposal has pitted agricultural groups against environmentalists and, according to some legislators like Tyson, Kansans against the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
Following the settlement of a 1999 lawsuit by two Kansas environmental groups, the EPA challenged the state's designation of 1,292 streams as secondary.
The proposal's effort to have streams keep this secondary classification despite federal regulations will invite the EPA into the state to regulate water quality, Metzler said.
"I don't think there's one chance in 100 you can avoid it," he said.
Some legislators contend the EPA regulations would bankrupt small farmers, who would be forced to clean up stream beds that are dry or carry little water most of the year.
Metzler, who once owned a small hog farm, disagrees. He said the land can absorb the waste from 50 cows or hogs. It's the corporate farms with 5,000 to 10,000 head of livestock, he said, that need extra pollution controls or lower water quality standards.
Representatives of the Kansas Biological Survey, a Kansas University research agency, have testified the proposal could leave almost 82 percent of state's stream miles unclassified and without pollution controls.
Hence Metzler's assertion that the bill proposes to violate the laws of chemistry and biology: animal waste contains nutrients, which speed up the growth of algae.
The permitted amount of fecal coliform, or bacteria from animal waste, increases from 200 units per 100 milliliters in a primary stream to 2,000 units in a secondary stream to unlimited amounts in an unclassified stream.
"The nutrients in animal waste move on down into the lakes," Metzler said. "The extra nutrients end up in long-term water supplies."
Metzler said anyone who doesn't believe him should go look at Tuttle Creek, where nutrient-rich water from the Nebraska's Blue River is deposited.
"The algae is so tight you can't even get a boat in," he said.
Legislators haven't made that field trip yet, nor backed down on the water quality proposal, but Metzler said he won't give up.
"This is a personal crusade with me," he said.
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