22 to Watch in RI in 2022: Terry Gray

Thursday, January 06, 2022

GoLocalProv News Team

 

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Terry Gray, Director PHOTO: RIDEM

For the past decade, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (RI DEM) has seen enforcement of its regulatory functions stripped to the bone under the previous director Janet Coit — now working for Gina Raimondo at the U.S. Commerce Department.

In 2020, a GoLocal expose unveiled the declining oversight under the Raimondo administration and during Coit’s leadership.

Now, long-time regulator Terry Gray is the acting director of RI DEM. Over the years, he helped to create the Brownfields program to reclaim hundreds of acres of contaminated urban lands.

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He also worked closely with the office of criminal investigations which was dismantled under Coit.

In recent years, a number of high-profile cases have been emerging and citizens groups along with environmental groups have criticized RI DEM’s lack of vigilance in protecting the environment.

One of the high-profile environmental cases now under review is the contaminated soil dumped in a Providence neighborhood as part of the Rhode Island Department of Transporation's (RIDOT) 6/10 project --  a case which was brought to the attention of state officials -- including RI DEM -- in July 2020, but the charges levied by a whistleblower were only investigated after GoLocal report unveiled the issues.

From 2015 to 2019, RI DEM issued just $4,519,831 in penalties for illegal disposal of hazardous and solid waste, water pollution and/or pollution violations — but those penalties were whittled down to just $1,189,575 in collected fines.

Save the Bay, Rhode Island’s leading environmental organization, told GoLocal, “The absence of enforcement not only compromises the environment, but it also represents a breakdown in the effort to deter future violations. Delayed or weak enforcement also frequently results in settlements that, in the end, do not fully protect the resource that was degraded by the original violation. Protecting Narragansett Bay, the water we drink and the air we breathe requires vigorous, timely enforcement.”

 

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