Clean Water News

As the new home of NCPIRG's environmental work, Environment North Carolina can be contacted with any questions regarding this news release. 

RALEIGH—More than 80 percent of industrial and municipal facilities across North Carolina exceeded their Clean Water Act permit limits between January 2002 and June 2003, according to a new report, "Troubled Waters," released today by the North Carolina Public Interest Research Group (NCPIRG).

"Our decision-makers should be taking strong action to address this illegal pollution, but polluters outnumber state enforcement officials by 600 to 1," charged NCPIRG's Environmental Advocate, Christine Wunsche. "In order to be able to go after polluters, the state needs to ensure adequate funding is available. To help off-set the lack of enforcement funding, the state needs to assess permit fees that are high enough to cover the costs of hiring and adequately training staff and implementing technology to track and monitor discharger compliance," continued Wunsche.

While the 1972 Clean Water Act has made strides in cleaning up U.S. waterways, the law's original goal of making all U.S. Waterways safe for fishing, swimming and other uses by 1983 has not been attained. Using the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA), NCPIRG obtained data on facilities' compliance with the Clean Water Act between January 1, 2002 and June 30, 2003. North Carolina consistently rated in the top five states with the highest number facilities out of compliance. Notably, there were 429 instances where facilities in North Carolina exceeded their permit levels by 500 percent, the highest number of such violations in the county. NCPIRG researchers also found that:

­ More than 80 percent of North Carolina's industrial and municipal facilities exceeded their Clean Water Act permits at least once over the period studied. North Carolina ranks 3rd in the country for percentage of facilities exceeding their pollution permits.

­ Polluters in North Carolina reported 2075 exceedances of their Clean Water Act permits during the 18-month period, ranking the state third in the country for most violations.

­ Nationally, 60 percent of all major facilities discharged pollution in excess of their permit limits at least once during the 18-month period studied. The average facility in violation exceeded its permit limit by more than 600 percent, or six times the legal limit. On average, North Carolina facilities exceeding their Clean Water Act permits did so by 955 percent, or by 9.5 times their legal limit.

Wunsche noted that these findings are likely conservative, since the data that NCPIRG analyzed includes only "major" facilities and does not include pollution discharged by hundreds of thousands of minor facilities across the country.

NCPIRG called on the Bush administration to back off its efforts to weaken the Clean Water Act and to commit to strengthening, rather than weakening, enforcement of this landmark legislation. In order to achieve the goals of the Clean Water Act, NCPIRG recommended the following:

­ Fully fund EPA's enforcement program to ensure that we have enough environmental cops on the beat to identify and punish polluters violating their Clean Water Act permits.

­ Strengthen the Clean Water Act by setting mandatory minimum penalties, tightening permitted pollution limits, revoking permits from repeat violators and allowing citizens full access to the courts.

­ Maintain and expand the public's right to know. The public should have full access to detailed and easily searchable information about enforcement of the Clean Water Act and pollution entering local waterways.

"Now more than ever, the state should act in the best interest of the environment and public health and hold polluters accountable to the Clean Water Act. A disturbing number of North Carolina facilities have violated their permits; it is important that the public is aware of what is happening to their rivers and streams, so that they can ensure the state's waters are being adequately protected," concluded Wunsche.