Greenbytes: December 17, 2003 Edition

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Feature: Banner Year on Enforcement in New England

Results from the last fiscal year make it clear that EPA’s New England Office, together with the states, is taking aggressive action against companies, facilities and property owners that pollute the environment and jeopardize public health.

The more than $12 million paid by violators to settle enforcement cases this past fiscal year was near an all-time high. In fact, fiscal years '02 and '03 are the two highest totals in the past 10 years.

Especially noteworthy is that more than two thirds of the settlements – a record $8.7 million – was spent on environmental projects that focused on such problems as skyrocketing asthma rates, diesel air pollution and loss of wetlands. Among the projects funded were installing diesel particulate filters on all of Rhode Island's public transit buses, building a new garbage transfer station with stringent air quality controls in Boston's Roxbury neighborhood, and restoring 54 acres of freshwater wetlands in southern Maine.

EPA NE also carried out 700 inspections across the region this past year, a 33 percent increase from the previous year. Among those were more than 100 inspections affecting more than 40,000 housing units to ensure that property owners and property managers were notifying tenants and prospective buyers of potential lead paint threats. Many of the inspections were done at the request of state environmental and public health agencies. A half-dozen enforcement actions were taken as a result of the inspections.

But, as valuable as inspections are, they are not the only tool EPA uses to achieve compliance. EPA also provides extensive compliance assistance and outreach, so that small businesses, municipalities and other entities can understand how to comply with environmental laws before EPA inspectors come knocking.

Over the past year, the region’s assistance program reached more than 25,000 New Englanders through 319 workshops and 74 stakeholder meetings. The program also enlisted 111 marine engine retailers in a program aimed at encouraging the sale of low-pollution marine engines. Even though they are not required until 2006, more than 80 percent of the engines sold by participating retailers were the ‘clean’ engines.

EPA New England has also been successful using the agency’s self audit policy to improve compliance in specific sectors – in particular, colleges and universities and municipal public works facilities. The audit policy is designed to encourage facilities to find and correct environmental problems themselves, so EPA can focus its limited enforcement resources elsewhere. Under EPA’s audit policy, if a facility finds an environmental violation and immediately corrects it and discloses the violation to EPA, penalties can be reduced or eliminated.

Last year the region had 115 disclosures of environmental problems that were found and fixed – more than half of them at municipal facilities and college/university facilities. The agency also confirmed that thousands of corrective actions were taken at more than 200 municipal and college/university facilities.

For more information about EPA NE’s enforcement programs, visit the agency’s web site at www.epa.gov/ne/enforcement/index.html

Press Releases

Claremont, N.H. Agrees to $6,000 Fine for Oil Spill Control Violations

EPA and DEP Issue Draft Discharge Permit for Marlborough Treatment Plant

EPA Defers the Broad Brook Mill Site to Connecticut DEP for Cleanup under State Authority

EPA’s New England Office Announces Strong Enforcement Results for 2003

EPA Completes $1 Million Cleanup of Historic Building in Bellows Falls, VT

EPA Congratulates Ashford’s Webelos Pack 92 Eagle Patrol

New Rules for Power Plants to Achieve to Largest Emission Reductions in a Decade; Major Step Forward in Eliminating ‘Smog’ Days in New England

EPA Designates 8-Hour Ozone Standard Nonattainment Areas for New England Accepts States' Recommendations for Designations

EPA Completes Cleanup In Henniker, N.H.

EPA congratulates Bristol, RI, development for winning national Brownfields award

Dam removal project in Henniker, NH receives conservation grant

EPA awards $100,000 Targeted Brownfields Assessment to Planning Commission

Events and conferences are not archived. Please refer to the Regional Calendar for upcoming events and conferences.

Broad Brook Mill Superfund Site - Consent Order, Community Update, Deferral Agreement, & Agreement for Recovery of Past and Future Response Costs posted

Brownfields - what’s new

Combined Sewer Overflows - updated text

Discharge Monitoring Report - 2004 instructions

Environmental Education Grants - fiscal year 2003 added

GE Pittsfield

• opportunity for public comment
• 1.5 Mile Reach of the Housatonic River Removal Action Monthly Report, October 2003

Industri-plex Superfund Site - rod & Consent Decree for Remedial Design/Remedial Action at Referral

Long Island Sound Dredging - public hearing documents posted

Mac/PC Reuse & Recycling - updated information on old computers

New Bedford Harbor Superfund Site

• Administrative Record Index, OU 01, ROD,
• Report on the Effects of the Hot Spot Dredging Operations & Long-Term Monitoring Assessment Report: Baseline Sampling

NPDES - draft general permit for hydroelectric facilities

• MA
• NH

Storm Water - updated text

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