New York Times chronicles Clean Water Act enforcement failures

Ready for some cheerful Monday reading? Well, the New York Times story Clean Water Laws Are Neglected, at a Cost in Suffering from this weekend is not that reading. However, it is a must read for anyone concerned about clean water and public health. Search-able databases provide information on a state-by-state and local level.

The article covers a lot of important ground about our backsliding on the promise of the Clean Water Act, with a powerful focus on the toll of increasingly weak enforcement programs around the country.

"Records analyzed by The Times indicate that the Clean Water Act has been violated more than 506,000 times since 2004, by more than 23,000 companies and other facilities, according to reports submitted by polluters themselves. Companies sometimes test what they are dumping only once a quarter, so the actual number of days when they broke the law is often far higher. And some companies illegally avoid reporting their emissions, say officials, so infractions go unrecorded.

Environmental groups say the number of Clean Water Act violations has increased significantly in the last decade. Comprehensive data go back only five years but show that the number of facilities violating the Clean Water Act grew more than 16 percent from 2004 to 2007, the most recent year with complete data."

To see the enforcement data for your state, visit http://projects.nytimes.com/toxic-waters/polluters/state-data where you'll find both the data and the state's response. The article also links to a "Find Water Polluters Near You" mapping system that watershed groups and individuals may find useful.

The article also underlines the weakness of our systems for penalizing polluters, and touches on the problem of a growing universe of permitted facilities coupled with flat state enforcement budgets.

"… the Times’s research shows that fewer than 3 percent of Clean Water Act violations resulted in fines or other significant punishments by state officials. And the E.P.A. has often declined to prosecute polluters or force states to strengthen their enforcement by threatening to withhold federal money or take away powers the agency has delegated to state officials."

"State officials, for their part, attribute rising pollution rates to increased workloads and dwindling resources. In 46 states, local regulators have primary responsibility for crucial aspects of the Clean Water Act. Though the number of regulated facilities has more than doubled in the last 10 years, many state enforcement budgets have remained essentially flat when adjusted for inflation. In New York, for example, the number of regulated polluters has almost doubled to 19,000 in the last decade, but the number of inspections each year has remained about the same.

But stretched resources are only part of the reason polluters escape punishment. The Times’s investigation shows that in West Virginia and other states, powerful industries have often successfully lobbied to undermine effective regulation."