The Top 20 Biggest Polluters in RI
Friday, March 16, 2012
The top 20 biggest polluters in Rhode Island include a company that dumped nearly 600 tons of contaminated soil at a middle school, a community leaking sewage into the bay, and a former power company that dumped hundreds of gallons of heating oil into the ground.
The most common violations were for water pollution, followed by violations for hazardous waste, solid waste, and air pollution.
GET THE LATEST BREAKING NEWS HERE -- SIGN UP FOR GOLOCAL FREE DAILY EBLASTOverall, the top 20 offenders racked up just over $3 million in initial fines—accounting for almost half of the fines issued by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management to about five hundred companies, landowners, and other polluters over the last five years, according to state records obtained by GoLocalProv.
Most offenders are companies and developers, some are cities and towns, and, in a few cases, DEM has been forced to issue fines to a fellow state agency. (See below chart for the complete list.)
The top 20 list is ranked by the size of the initial fine issued by DEM. The highest fines take into account both the seriousness of the offense—including the damage to the environment and the threat to public health—as well as the duration of the offense, according to David Chopy, chief of the Office of Compliance and Inspection for DEM.
The top 20 biggest pollution cases include:
■ Sewage in the Sakonnet River: The town of Portsmouth is one of the most significant sources of pollution into the Narragansett Bay area thanks to a municipal storm water drainage system that is sending raw or near-raw sewage from neighborhoods with failing septic tanks and cesspools into the Sakonnet River and The Cove. Nearly two hundred acres of water are affected. As a result of the pollution, the Health Department has issued an advisory warning against swimming and the state has instituted a permanent shell-fishing ban in the affected areas. The case remains unresolved.
■ Contaminated Soil at a Middle School: The Cardi Corporation dumped 598 tons of soil contaminated with hazardous materials at the construction site for the new Ponaganset Middle School in Glocester. The soil contained semi-volatile compounds also known as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, which have been known to cause lung and skin cancer in laboratory tests on animals. The contaminated soil was removed almost immediately once the company realized its error, according to an official, but the $251,000 fine it triggered is under appeal. (See below for more.)
■ Toxic Chemicals in the Blackstone River: A wastewater treatment plant owned by the City of Woonsocket released chemicals into the Blackstone River that exceeded legal limits in 2007. The chemicals included: ammonia, phosphorous, chlorine. (Cyanide is OK when it is at 90 milligrams per liter or less—in other words, a ratio of one gallon of cyanide per billion gallons of water.) Levels of fecal coliform bacteria—which are used as a measure of other, more dangerous pathogens—also were too high.
■ Copper into the Providence River: During the relocation of Interstate 195, the Rhode Island Department of Transportation released more copper into the Providence River than allowed by the permit for the project. Copper is one of the three most toxic metals for invertebrate animals. In humans, too much copper can lead to nausea, vomiting, and other similar symptoms.
■ Wetland Destruction: The developer of a residential project in Scituate, known as Hope Mill Village, razed nine acres of wetland habitat along the Pawtuxet River. “They took a bulldozer and literally went into the river,” Chopy said. The developer also cleared about half an acre of forested wetland and discharged storm water with soil into the river, which affects the ability of light—killing underwater plant life and the creatures that feed on them. The damage continued unabated for several months, despite two cease and desist orders from DEM. “We told him to stop on a number of occasions and he refused to do so,” Chopy said.
■ Hazardous Materials and an Oil Spill: Several years ago, a DEM inspector responding to a complaint witnessed the release of 200 gallons of heating oil into the ground at 715R Branch Avenue, the site of the former Wanskuck Mill Power House building in Providence. But that wasn’t the worst of it: the inspector also stumbled upon “hundreds of containers holding unidentified materials” that were later identified as paint thinners and oil-based paints. Because of the seriousness of the case, the EPA was called in to clean up the site. (The City of Providence was fined along with the company because it owns the property.) The case remains unresolved and is now likely headed for the courts, according to a DEM official.
DEM official: Ignorance behind violations
Companies and individuals run afoul of state environmental laws usually for one of three reasons, according to Chopy.
“You have the ignorant—that’s usually a big part of it,” Chopy said. “People just don’t know what the rules and laws are.”
Then, there are those who cut corners to cut costs, or defy the rules over philosophical differences with DEM. And, lastly, there are those who simply unable to comply with the rules, perhaps for personal reasons, such as the distraction of a divorce, or financial hardship.
Developer: ‘We weren’t bootlegging’
And, in at least one of the top 20 cases, pollution was caused by pure accident, according to Stephen Cardi, the treasurer for the Cardi Corporation, which was fined for taking about 598 tons of soil from a construction site for Interstate 195 and pouring it on the grounds of a new middle school in Glocester.
“The facts are, we weren’t bootlegging. It was just a screw-up,” Cardi told GoLocalProv.
He said his company was working for the state Department of Transportation on the reconstruction of I-195 at the same time that it was a subcontractor on the school site. The contaminated soil was not taken from a section of the highway that had not been marked as potentially polluted, Cardi said. Instead, he said it came from an area that was marked as safe.
He suspected the contamination in the soil dates back to the 1940s—before the highway was even built.
He said workers at his company did not realize what had happened until they noticed the smell coming from the soil they had dropped at the middle school grounds. He credited his employees with immediately covering the contaminated area and notifying DEM. (Chopy said he could not comment because the case is pending an administrative hearing.)
Dilemma in Portsmouth
Since the onset of the recession, Chopy said he has seen financial hardship become an increasingly common reason for noncompliance. And it’s not just companies that ran out of money or went belly up. Towns that should know the rules aren’t following them because they can’t afford them—or because they cut experienced staff that had been familiar with environmental regulations, Chopy said.
A possible case in point: Portsmouth, which is at odds with DEM over how to fix a storm water drainage system that is ferrying sewage from low-lying neighborhoods into the Sakonnet River and a cove. “A lot of townspeople feel like the cost of fixing the problem is exorbitant,” said Topher Hamblett, director of advocacy and policy at Save the Bay.
But money is not the only issue. Portsmouth and DEM have also locked horns over the most environmentally-friendly way to fix the problem. The area in question—the Island Park and Portsmouth Park neighborhoods at the northern end of town—is low-lying, which complicates matters because of the risk of rising sea levels in the future, according to Hamblett.
“So the solution is really a great debate,” Hamblett said.
“It’s certainly one of the spots around Narragansett Bay that needs attention—no question,” he added. (The Portsmouth town administrator did not respond to requests for comment.)
Ripple Effects of the Recession
The recession is not just affecting the ability of companies and towns to comply with the rules: it’s also hampering the ability of DEM to enforce them.
Years of budget cuts, especially in state department staff, have taken their toll, according to Hamblett. “I would say that their ability to enforce and inspect has suffered,” he said. “When the agency has been whittled down to almost nothing how can people expect their water and air to be clean? They have an enforcement staff, but it’s not what it was.”
Since 2002, the staffing for the Office of Compliance and Inspection at DEM has been cut nearly in half: down from a high of 45 employees to about 25 the latest figures show, according to DEM reports.
But fiscal austerity has also reduced the caseload, according to Chopy.
“What has saved us in terms of not falling too far behind is we’ve seen a huge drop-off in complaints of cases,” he said. Due to the economy, he said there were fewer developments, meaning fewer opportunities for environmental violations.
The department is still struggling, however, to fully staff all of its programs, like its freshwater wetland program, he added. “We have too many backlogs in that program,” Chopy said.
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