USPIRG says ‘Revere Copper Products Violating Law’
By Joe Crea
WASHINGTON, Nov. 07, 2002–Several weeks ago marked the 30th anniversary of the Clean Water Act, ambitious legislation that has regulated hazardous discharges in our nation’s waterways. On the eve of this celebration, a public interest group said that thousands of facilities including Revere Copper Products in New Bedford have been violating their permit by exceeding their permit dumping levels of hazardous metals.
The U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG) released “In Gross Violation: How Polluters are Flooding America’s Waterways with Toxic Chemicals,” detailing the lax enforcement of the CWA by the Environmental Protection Agency and state environmental agencies. About 5,116 major facilities in the U.S. have exceed their permit limits at least once between January 1, 1999 and December 31, 2001 and 1,768 of these facilities have discharged chemicals that are known or suspected to cause cancer and other serious health ailments, according to the report.
The report states that Revere Copper Products in New Bedford has exceeded their permit dumping levels of zinc into the Acushnet River by 3,179 percent over their normal limit. In a prepared statement, the company’s Vice President of Environmental and Human Resources, Kevin P. Cleary, called the report ‘misleading,’ and said that it created a ‘false impression.’
Cleary said the zinc levels were recorded at monitoring points located within the wastewater process ‘well before the discharge to the Acushnet River.’
“The facility itself reports this information to the EPA so I don’t understand what they’re (Revere Copper Products) saying in this statement,” said Richard Caplan, a US PIRG researcher who contributed to the report. “This is not an insignificant violation. It’s quite significant. They’ve violated the law.”
The health effects of high hazard chemicals like zinc are numerous. It’s a suspected blood, immuno, reproductive, respiratory and skin toxin. And any workers in the area that are exposed to accidental releases of the chemical in the facility could experience many ailments from respiratory problems to affixation, said Liz Hitchcock Communication Director for U.S. PIRG.
“When you confront these violators they often say, ‘well, people take Zinc lozenges,’” said Hitchcock. “However, the average level of zinc dumped into the Acushnet River by Revere Copper Products is 3,179% over their permit limit. Those aren’t lozenges levels.”
US PIRG said that their report makes clear that facilities are not being deterred from violating the law despite the fact that fines could be numerous for violaters.
According to the Sierra Club, if a company unknowingly violated their permits, they can be charged no less than $2500 and nor more than 25,000 per day of the violation. But for those who willingly violate their permits, the daily fines can reach close to $50,000.
“Those are pretty sizable fines especially if you are exceeding your permit for a few years,” said Ed Hopkins, director of the Sierra Club’s Environmental Quality program. “But, the courts are very sensitive about putting companies out of business, so a lot of the time it’s rare that the full penalty is imposed,” said Hopkins.”
Hitchcock says that one of the problems with the CWA is that it doesn’t have ‘mandatory enforcement’ attached to it. “With 88,000 violations of the law, that might indicate that there was less than enthusiastic enforcement happening,” said Hitchcock. “California and New Jersey have passed laws that establish mandatory fines but the
CWA as is, gives the charge to the states to enforce the law.”
In his statement, Cleary said that his company ‘considers environmental performance to be a matter of continuous improvement’ and is in the process of installing ‘additional water treatment enhancements including a final pH treatment system and increased equalization capacity.’
Published in The New Bedford Standard Times, in Massachusetts.
