VICTORY: Bringing a water supply to a polluted town

This post is one in a month-long series speaking to 15 of PennFuture's significant victories. It was 15 years ago this September that we began our work to protect the environment and champion a clean energy economy.

For decades, citizens in one of the poorest areas of Butler County had lived with the remains of its industrial past. A chemical plant had dumped hazardous substances into ravines throughout the community, contaminating the public drinking water supply and many private water wells in and around the town of Petrolia.
 
Despite requests from local residents, both the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) failed to take action against the company responsible for the contamination, or even investigate the full extent of groundwater contamination in the community.
 

Frustrated by 20 years of official inaction, local citizens formed a group to look for legal assistance. Their search led them to the California law firm that employed Erin Brockovich as an investigator, and though that firm would not take the case, it suggested that the group contact a local nonprofit known as PennFuture. The group reached out, and PennFuture staff immediately responded by traveling to the rural valley to meet with concerned residents. We soon developed a plan of attack.

Representing nearly 100 families, PennFuture went public with its demand that DEP immediately provide safe drinking water to the community, and initiated a suit against the company responsible for the past waste disposal.

DEP responded by providing temporary drinking water to area residents, eventually earmarking $18 million to clean up the dump sites and build a new public water system that would supply residents with a permanent, safe source of drinking water. The company contributed to the cleanup through a settlement with DEP, and established a separate fund to reimburse our clients for the increased costs associated with their use of the public water supply.

The new water supply for the Petrolia Valley was completed in 2006. As of this month, the DEP continues to make slow progress on cleaning up the waste piles that originally contaminated area drinking water supplies in the town of Petrolia.

Clean Water Act Turns 40

Forty years ago Congress, in bipartisan fashion, overrode a veto by President Richard M. Nixon and enacted the Clean Water Act of 1972. It has made a dramatic improvement in our lives, and that of our children.

On its birthday, I found myself reflecting on two aspects of this complex law known as the Clean Water Act — its technology-forcing nature, and its desire to achieve an impossible goal.

Congress did something extraordinary lo those many years ago — it knowingly designed a system that would likely put companies out of business in favor of cleaning up our nation's waterways. Congress did that by setting cleanup standards that were driven by technology — in some cases expensive technology — that would only be able to be afforded by some of the best performing companies in a specific industry. And it put what some would think was a draconian measure in place to save a dying patient — our nations waterways.

Section 402 of the Clean Water Act required persons to obtain permits in order to discharge pollutants into waters of the United States. The U.S. EPA was required to put conditions in those permits that limited the amount of pollutants that could be discharged. Those limits were to be initially based on existing technology that considered the economic condition of companies in a particular industry. As time went by, the limits would be lowered to reflect the best technology available to remove that pollutant from the waste discharge, with less concern for a company's ability to afford that technology. Congress knew there were companies that operated so inefficiently that if they were forced to internalize the actual cost of production by not using the environment as a free trash can, those companies would eventually go out of business — a bold and courageous decision, indeed. Congress knowingly chose to put those inefficient companies on the trash heap in favor of companies that were forced to internalize the cost of adopting these new technologies in order to properly manage their pollution.

The purpose of these technology-forcing provisions was to achieve a previously unheard of goal in environmental regulation — the goal of zero discharge of pollutants to waters of the United States. While progress has at times been slow, and the provisions of the Clean Water Act itself would not conceivably meet the goal — at a time when the Cuyahoga River was burning because of pollution on its surface, the zero discharge goal made an important and forceful statement about the seriousness of the task being given to the U.S. EPA: Clean up the waters of the United States or else. Many have credited this simple yet seemingly unachievable goal with much of the success achieved under the Clean Water Act over the past 40 years. Without this wind at the back of the EPA, many of the difficult decisions that the agency has made implementing the provisions of the Clean Water Act would no doubt have been that much more difficult — particularly during difficult economic times over the past four decades.

Reflecting on the successes achieved, it should not be lost that the way in which the Clean Water Act went about achieving its goals did not just put some underperforming companies out of business, it also put people to work. It encouraged development of an entire industry that we now take for granted — an industry of scientists, engineers, inventors, mechanics, and other good-paying careers built around one goal — removing pollutants from the waters that we use to fish, swim, and drink.

The Clean Water Act turns 40, and we are that much better for it. It's difficult not to wonder whether those in Congress today would have the ability and will to construct and enact such a monumental piece of public health legislation.