PennEnvironment: PA Needs To Do More To Prevention Waterway Pollution, Not Cut Budget

On the heels of the biggest budget cut in history to the Department of Environmental Protection, PennEnvironment this week issued a report recommending the agency do more to prevent pollution going into Commonwealth waterways and adopt tougher permit and enforcement policies.
The report-- Wasting Our Waterways: Industrial Toxic Pollution and the Unfulfilled Promise of the Clean Water Act-- noted industrial facilities dumped over 10 million pounds of toxic chemicals into Pennsylvania’s waterways every year.
The report also finds that toxic chemicals were discharged in 1,900 waterways across all 50 states.
“While nearly 16,000 miles of Pennsylvania’s waterways and half of the nation’s rivers and lakes in the U.S. are considered impaired, our report shows that polluters continue to use our waterways as dumping grounds for their toxic chemicals,” said Erika Staaf, Clean Water Advocate with PennEnvironment.
The PennEnvironment report documents and analyzes the dangerous levels of pollutants discharged in to America’s waters by compiling toxic chemical releases reported to the U.S. EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory for 2007, the most recent data available.
Major findings of the report include:
-- The Monongahela River is ranked first in Pennsylvania for total toxic discharges, with 2.6 million pounds discharged in 2007.
-- The Susquehanna River ranked first in Pennsylvania for cancer-causing chemicals, with over 4,000 pounds discharged in 2007.
-- The Delaware River is ranked fifth in the nation for total toxic discharges, with over 7.4 million pounds discharged in 2007.
-- US Steel – Clairton Works, near Pittsburgh, released over 2.5 million pounds of toxic chemical waste into the Monongahela River and Peters Creek. The US Steel facility was the largest reported polluter of toxic chemicals in Pennsylvania in 2007.
“With only one in twenty companies violating their water pollution permits getting any kind of penalty, you would think the state would be stepping up its enforcement activities,” stated Myron Arnowitt, PA State Director for Clean Water Action.” “Unfortunately, just the opposite is true. The state legislature just approved a new budget that cuts DEP by over 27 percent, taking even more of our environmental cops off the beat.”
The Department of Environmental Protection lost 434 positions over the last six years and this year was hit with a 26 percent cut in its General Fund budget.
In 2007 then DEP Secretary Kathleen McGinty said, in defending the Governor's proposed budget for DEP before the Senate Appropriations Committee, "We cut through the meat and into the bone." (3/9/07 Pa Environment Digest)
This year, DEP Secretary John Hanger acknowledged there were significant permit review backlogs at the agency and he directed his staff to take steps by January 2011 to eliminate that backlog by making changes to permit review processes, some of which are opposed by environmental groups. (2/27/09 Pa Environment Digest)
PennEnvironment’s report summarizes the discharge of cancer-causing chemicals, chemicals that persist in the environment, and chemicals with the potential to cause reproductive problems ranging from birth defects to reduced fertility. Among the toxic chemicals discharged by facilities are lead, mercury, and dioxin. When dumped into waterways, these toxic chemicals contaminate drinking water and are absorbed by the fish that people eventually eat. Exposure to these chemicals is linked to cancer, developmental disorders, and reproductive disorders. In 2007, manufacturing facilities discharged approximately 1.5 million pounds of cancer-causing chemicals into American waters.
“Clean Water is more than an environmental issue – this is also a health and justice issue,” stated Dr. James Plumb, a board member for the Philadelphia Chapter of Physicians for Social Responsibility. “Many common chemicals and pollutants have already been linked to rising rates of asthma, cancer and heart conditions.”
In order to curb the toxic pollution threatening Pennsylvania’s waterways, PennEnvironment recommends the following:
-- Pollution Prevention: Industrial facilities should reduce their toxic discharges in to waterways by switching from hazardous chemicals to safer alternatives.
-- Tough permitting and enforcement: EPA and state agencies should issue permits with tough, numeric limits for each type of toxic pollution discharged, ratchet down those limits over time, and enforce those limits with credible penalties, not just warning letters.
-- Protect all waters: The federal government should adopt policies to clarify that the Clean Water Act applies to all of our waterways. This includes the thousands of headwaters and small streams for which jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act has been called into question, as a result of recent court decisions.
“There are common-sense steps that should be taken to turn the tide against toxic pollution of our waters. We need clean water now, and we need the state and federal government to act to protect our health and our environment,” concluded Staaf.
A copy of the report is available online.