Nearly half the sewage treatment plants, factories and a grab-bag of other places that dumped wastewater into Washington's waterways in recent years violated federal water pollution laws.
And yet, enforcement actions against polluters are pretty rare, according to a data-filled, groundbreaking interactive series by The New York Times.
Even though 195 out of the Evergreen State's 435 regulated facilities violated the Clean Water Act between 2004 and 2007, few got in trouble for it, according to exhaustive data posted at NYTimes.com. For every 100 violations in the state, there were only 8.6 enforcement actions.
Example: The U.S. Navy's Puget Sound Naval Shipyard in Bremerton "has been out of regulatory compliance 11 of the past 12 quarters." It faced two violations for exceeding pollution limits on the water it dumps into a tributary of Puget Sound, one in 2007 and another in 2004. An interactive tool at the Times' site allows users to click through to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency web page that shows the shipyard in the last five years was fined $4,000.
Elsewhere, Puyallup's Sewage Treatment Plant "has been out of regulatory compliance 12 out of the past 12 quarters," the Times reports. Fines levied: zero.
Seattle proper comes out looking pretty good. Just three violators were identified. One was Nucor Steel, west of the Duwamish River and south of the West Seattle bridge. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's website says Nucor has violated the Clean Water Act three times in the last three years. The New York Times found that Nucor had been slapped with a single violation for exceeding pollution limits during the 2004-2007 period the newspaper studied.
As for the other two Seattle violators identified by the Times:
- Shell Oil's Harbor Island petroleum terminal has been out of compliance with the rules seven times in the last three years, according to EPA.gov.
- The University of Washington's Medical Center violated the Clean Water Act in 2005, the Times reported. It's been out of compliance once in the last three years, according to EPA's website.
Nucor, Shell and the UW all escaped fines, EPA says.
If this sounds like deja vu, there's a reason: The Seattle P-I's campaign to restore Puget Sound started with a 2002 series that also pointed out how many factories, sewage treatment plants and other polluters are reporting dumping of waste into waterways above Clean Water Act limits, with little fear of punishment.
But the New York Times series is amazing for its depth, interactivity, and scope nationwide, and it has generated buzz. Its main point:
Almost four decades ago, Congress passed the Clean Water Act to force polluters to disclose the toxins they dump into waterways and to give regulators the power to fine or jail offenders. States have passed pollution statutes of their own. But in recent years, violations of the Clean Water Act have risen steadily across the nation, an extensive review of water pollution records by The New York Times found.
In the last five years alone, chemical factories, manufacturing plants and other workplaces have violated water pollution laws more than half a million times. The violations range from failing to report emissions to dumping toxins at concentrations regulators say might contribute to cancer, birth defects and other illnesses.
However, the vast majority of those polluters have escaped punishment. State officials have repeatedly ignored obvious illegal dumping, and the Environmental Protection Agency, which can prosecute polluters when states fail to act, has often declined to intervene.
As environmental reporter Ken Ward of the Charleston Gazette points out in his blog , the Times provided "this nifty interactive graphic, a sidebar on how to research the safety of your own water supply, and state-by-state data and regulatory agency responses to the problems identified by the newspaper."
Sandy Howard of Washington's Department of Ecology wrote a nearly four-page letter in response to the Times' request to provide or verify figures regarding the state's enforcement of the Clean Water Act.
"Ecology has one of the nation’s strongest clean water permit programs," she wrote. "In 2008 -- of about 300 domestic wastewater facilities (both major and minor) -- 91 facilities were in perfect compliance with all of their permit requirements. This represents almost one third all wastewater treatment facilities in our state."
This is an improvement, she pointed out. Before an award program was instituted by Ecology in 1995, "only 14 treatment plants were in perfect compliance."
It's not easy to be perfect, she pointed out: "Small facilities typically perform at least 60 laboratory tests per month on the treated wastewater. A larger facility may perform well over 120 analyses per month. With the number of tests they perform, there is a lot of opportunity for problems.
"Because of this, we believe this high rate of compliance is a great achievement for clean water in our state."
To find polluters in your ZIP code or city, go here.
