USA: Pollution violations uncovered

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First Posted: 31 Mar 2006 02:37 am

Pollution violations uncovered

Duluth News Tribune - March 30, 2006

BY JOHN MYERS

Northland sewage treatment plants, a taconite plant and other industries have regularly violated federal water pollution permits, a national environmental group has found.

U.S. Public Interest Research Group this week released a report that found that almost 40 percent of industrial and municipal facilities in Minnesota have discharged more pollution into waterways than their permits allow.

The group used Freedom of Information Act requests to look at violations between July 2003 and December 2004, and found 160 Minnesota violations averaging more than double the legal permit levels.

In Northeastern Minnesota, there were 42 violations during the period reviewed, more than half of which were at Northshore Mining operations in Lake and St. Louis counties.

Northshore reported 24 permit violations ranging from excess ammonia flowing out of its mine pit to overly high levels of fluoride in discharge from its Silver Bay taconite tailings basin.

Other Northshore violations were for pH levels, suspended solids and turbidity.

John Thomas, who oversees water discharge permits for the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency's Duluth office, said the PCA has known of the violations and in many cases already has taken action.

For example, Northshore Mining has agreed to fix its fluoride problem and paid a $37,750 fine in 2005 for violating the permit.

Fluoride leaches out of minerals mined by the company and flows into the plant's taconite tailings basin. While the company has installed a system to reduce fluoride going into the tailings basin, Thomas said the basin fluoride levels are still above permit levels for water that is discharged into the Beaver River.

''Their system just wasn't working for fluoride, but they are moving in the right direction now,'' Thomas said.

If ingested in large amounts, fluoride is considered a human health threat because it can rot teeth and cause brittle bones, Thomas said.

Northshore environmental officials in Silver Bay did not return phone calls from the News Tribune on Wednesday.

It appears the excess ammonia found in the company's mine pit water is probably from explosives used to rip taconite off mine walls. The company is working with its explosives supplier to reduce ammonia. In 2005, Northshore violated its ammonia standard twice. The company monitored the levels 24 times.

Ammonia can be toxic to aquatic life, Thomas said. The pit water flows into the Partridge River.

The PCA enforces federal standards for the Environmental Protection Agency in Minnesota. In 2005, the PCA made more than 450 inspections of permitted facilities in Minnesota.

In Northwestern Wisconsin, the only major violator was the city of Superior's wastewater treatment plant, which exceeded permit levels 15 times during the 18 months, usually for dissolved oxygen levels but also chlorine, phosphorus, solids and fecal coliform.

The violations don't include small businesses that discharge pollution into waterways or small city sewage plants. They also don't include illegal, unpermitted pollution episodes.

``Polluters are using America's waters as their dumping ground. Instead of solving the problem, the Bush administration is slashing the EPA's budget and weakening critical clean water programs,'' LuCinda Hohmann, Minnesota associate for U.S. PIRG, said in announcing the report.

Hohmann noted that more than 40 percent of U.S. waterways have yet to meet clean water standards set more than 30 years ago for swimming, fishing or drinking. In Minnesota, 46 percent of rivers and 37 percent of lakes are impaired.

U.S. Rep. Betty McCollum, D-Minn., is a co-sponsor of legislation that would strengthen the Clean Water Act. The legislation, called the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act, was sponsored by Rep. Jim Oberstar, D-Chisholm.

U.S. PIRG recommended federal and state officials:

• Increase EPA funding to put more environmental cops on the beat to identify and punish polluters violating their Clean Water Act permits, and fully fund the Clean Water State Revolving Fund to help communities upgrade their sewer systems.

• Protect all U.S. waters by withdrawing the Bush administration's 2003 policy that eliminates Clean Water Act protections for many small streams and wetlands that feed into larger waters, and support the Clean Water Authority Restoration Act.

• Strengthen the Clean Water Act by preventing polluters from profiting from pollution, tightening permitted pollution limits, revoking the permits of repeat violators and ensuring citizens full access to legal action.

SOURCE:
http://www.duluthsuperior.com/mld/dulut ... 222795.htm