TO EPA: ADEM Water Pollution Program Broken
By Cindy Lowry, FLFR board member
In January of 2010, FLFR joined with 13 other organizations in an effort led by the Alabama Rivers Alliance to file a petition to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) asking them to remove the state’s authority over the water pollution permitting program. The 77-page petition (along with over 200 pages of exhibits) documents the failures of the state of Alabama to meet the minimum requirements of the Clean Water Act regarding the water pollution permitting program. The full petition can be read at http://www.alabama-rivers.org/epa-petition.
BROKEN, STATEWIDE
“The water pollution permitting program administered by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) is fundamentally broken and does not meet minimum federal standards,” stated Alabama Rivers Alliance Program Director Mitch Reid. “This failure is a systemic, statewide problem. From funding to implementation to enforcement, the failures of the current system are leaving the citizens and environment of Alabama unprotected.” The water pollution permitting program, known as the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) is a part of the federal Clean Water Act. Each state is required to implement at least the minimum standards required in the federal law.
DECADE
For more than a decade, environmental and citizen organizations have worked with state agency leaders to find ways to improve ADEM’s program. While there have been modest gains on a few individual issues, these have not addressed the substantial systemic failures of Alabama’s water pollution permitting program.
ONLY RELIEF
Petitioners determined that intervention by the Environmental Protection Agency was the only relief left available to Alabama’s environmental community to ensure that proper actions are taken to fix this defective program and protect our waterways.
The petition initiated a legal process that is expected to engage EPA, ADEM, and all interested parties in developing concrete solutions to reform ADEM’s water pollution permitting program.
GOAL
The goal of the petitioners is for Alabama’s water pollution permitting program to meet or exceed minimum federal standards under the Clean Water Act in order to protect human health and the environment for the citizens of Alabama. Since the filing of the petition, petitioners have had initial conversations with EPA agents as they perform their official review of the petition. Additionally, petitioners are currently reviewing ADEM’s official response filed April 9.