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Thursday, October 11, 2007

EPA's Lax Enforcement Fouls Water Too

As Reg•Watch blogged this morning, the Environmental Protection Agency is all talk when it comes to enforcement of environmental regulations. A new report from U.S. PIRG titled Troubled Waters highlights the deficiencies in EPA's enforcement of Clean Water Act regulations.

Facilities that want to discharge pollutants into navigable waterways must first receive a permit from EPA. EPA uses the permit system to limit discharges and to monitor the polluting activity of the facilities.

The report finds, "Nationally, more than 3600 major facilities (57%) exceeded their Clean Water Act permit limits at least once between January 1, 2005 and December 31, 2005." Furthermore, the violations tend to be significant: "Major facilities exceeding their Clean Water Act permits, on average, exceeded their permit limits by 263%, or nearly four times the allowed amount."

One problem the report cites is poor enforcement during the Bush administration. President Bush has consistently pushed budgets which slash the agency's enforcement funding. Whether it's due to a lack of funding or a lack of interest, EPA has underwhelmed in enforcing the Clean Water Act:

In 2007, the EPA Office of Inspector General reviewed 56 major facilities in long-term significant non-compliance with Clean Water Act NPDES permits between July 2002 and June 2005. The Inspector General found that EPA and states did not take suitable enforcement actions to address all of the violations at 21 of the facilities and took no enforcement actions at eight of the facilities. At 35 of the facilities reviewed, none of the enforcement actions that the Inspector General's office could assess were taken in a timely manner, leading facilities to continue to violate their permits for extended periods of time.

As Reg•Watch mentioned earlier, officials claim the agency is focusing on polluters who leave a "big environmental footprint" and on "chronic offenders who are out of compliance." Too bad they're all talk.