Corporations Have Violated Clean Water Act Over 500,000 Times in Last Five Years

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http://www.alternet.org/water/142669/are_you_drinking_unsafe_water_corporations_have_violated_clean_water_act_over_500%2C000_times_in_last_five_years


Are You Drinking Unsafe Water? Corporations Have Violated Clean Water Act Over 500,000 Times in Last Five Years


Forty percent of the nation’s community water systems violated the Safe Drinking Water Act at least once, exposing over 23 million people to potential danger.


-snip-

CHARLES DUHIGG: Well, we spent about ten months collecting records from every single state and the EPA, trying to figure out exactly what was going on with the nation's waters. And what we discovered was that the Clean Water Act was passed about almost four decades ago with the intent of giving regulators the power to monitor what goes into our waterways and then punish people who violate their permits. And everyone who dumps something into a waterway has to have a permit. And what we found is that only about three percent of people who violate their permits ever get punished. And so, somewhat unsurprisingly, the rate of violations has gone up significantly, because companies and workplaces know that they can break the Clean Water Act without getting punished for it.

-snip-

And that's what's happening all across the country, is that every single month or every single week or every single quarter, companies send in reports, and they say, this is what I'm dumping into a river, or this is what I'm dumping into a pond. And it shows that they're breaking the law, but in most cases regulators either don't look at the report, or even if they see the report, they're not doing anything to punish them.

AMY GOODMAN: And it's not just coal companies. I mean, the figures you're talking about here are astounding. Chemical companies have violated the Clean Water Act 500,000 times.

-snip-

CHARLES DUHIGG: And it's not just chemical companies; it's facilities of any kind. So a lot of the polluters are, for instance, gas stations, dry cleaning stores, wastewater treatment plants that are run by New York City or any other city. These are all facilities that, under the Clean Water Act, are supposed to limit the toxins and other chemicals and pollutants that they dump into rivers or lakes or ponds. And they measure each week or each month what they're dumping, and they tell regulators, but regulators just aren't acting on that.

-snip-

CHARLES DUHIGG: If you go to nytimes.com/water, you'll see a link that let's you find your own state. And what you can do is, you can put in your own zip code and look up who around you has violated the Clean Water Act, and then you can also download all of this data from the states.

One of the things that we found that was really troubling was that we went to the EPA to try and ask them for this information to figure out what's going on. And the EPA's records weren't great, because when we went to the states, the states would say, "No, the EPA is completely wrong. We have all these other violations that the EPA doesn't know about." And so, we asked every single state, send us all of your data, and then we put it all together, and that's what --
-snip-
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we need to be smart about this and stop being stupid. this is a health issue.

[imdjh]

1. Hmmmmm. Made me think about the mercury levels in India.

I don't know if batteries have mercury, but wouldn't you think that a lot of "developing nations" or backward regions within those nations would have populations which use a lot of batteries? I wonder what battery sales look like in the iffy areas of tech on the globe.

[TxRider]

2. Yup most city water supplies do not have to meet EPS specs

And many do not. As someone who used to do that kind of thing for a living.

Always best to check the water reports from the city to see how safe the water is, it varies a lot from city to city.

[bvar22]

3. This is the reason I laugh when the politicians promise...

...that they are going to "regulate" the Health Insurance Industry.

[Hannah Bell]

4. so by the acorn precedent, they should all be put out of business.