A bi-state sewer scuffle
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- September
- 20
In New Jersey, a federal magistrate judge’s decision to allow Upper Saddle River’s water pollution suit against Rockland Sewer District # 1 is getting some props in this editorial in today’s Bergen Record.
(Note that the Village of Airmont, which argued that it has no control over the sewer system, was let off the hook. U.S. Magistrate Judge Mark Fox recommended that the case not continue against the village, just the sewer district.)
Upper Saddle River alleges that the sewer district violated the federal Clean Water Act by spilling at least 2.5 million gallons of raw sewage into the Saddle River from a manhole in Airmont between Aug. 23 and Sept. 3 of 2006. The lawsuit seeks a judgment declaring a violation of the Clean Water Act, and a permanent injunction to force permanent compliance with the Clean Water Act and discharge permits. Of course, civil penalties and plaintiff lawsuit costs are being sought.
As with most environmental impacts, what occurs here doesn’t happen in a vacuum.
Certainly, we’ve heard the argument about capacity (sewer officials say there’s more than adequate capacity; critics, most significantly Preserve Ramapo, point to what it believes is overtaxed infrastructure of the whole system.)
As is just about everything, especially in Ramapo, sewers are political. That doesn’t matter to our neighbors downstream, they just want their water kept clean.
This entry was posted
on Thursday, September 20th, 2007 at 2:01 pm by Nancy Cutler.
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Would it be unfair to suggest that the JN has been more than a little blase in its reporting of sewer spills?
According to the official reports from Rockland’s Sewer District #1 we had almost 3.4 million gallons of sewage overflowing from manholes in just the first 4 months of 2007!!!
One might think this deserves headlines. Instead, we have supervisor who has the nerve to write a letter to the JN claiming that our sewer system is an engineering marvel of the modern world!!! One might think that when such lies are put forward so blatantly they might be challenged in the editorial pages of the JN.
St. Lawrence cannot claim ignorance. He is a sewer commissioner and we have volunteered to present him with the reports presented to his own commission by his own technical staff. He is not interested.
But before we criticize the JN, think about the Bergen Record which hasn’t done any better, and the raw sewage is flowing into Bergen’s water system.
Detailed information including a list of all sewer overflow reports for the last few years (our unofficial as well as the official reports) can be found on www.preserveramapo.com.
Incidentally, Preserve Ramapo is convinced that Sewer District #1 has been filing fradulent reports with New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation for years and we have made this suggestion carefully and forcefully. The situation has been much worse than is indicated in the official reports. Unfortunately, the DEC has told ust that it doesn’t have the manpower to investigate charges of fraud.
Robert I. Rhodes, Chairman, Preserve Ramapo
Bob, I noticed your comment about the DEC. Here’s a Sept. 12 article from TJN staff writer Laura Incalcaterra that you may find interesting:
State boosts crime unit focusing on worst environmental violators
ALBANY – The state is breathing new life into a crime unit that focuses on felony-level investigations of the worst violators of New York’s environmental laws.
The Bureau of Environmental Crimes Investigation, part of the Department of Environmental Conservation, was created in 1982.
It focused its investigations on large-scale dumping of hazardous waste, trafficking in endangered species and illegal fish, and money laundering in the solid-waste industry, among other cases.
But in 1996, the unit, like much of the rest of the DEC, was starting to get scaled down as part of a reorganization effort under then-Gov. George Pataki.
About 700 to 800 DEC jobs were eliminated while Pataki was in office, from 1995 to 2006.
The bureau’s ranks of major and captain were eliminated, and lieutenants and investigators were reassigned to regional offices. There are 37 lieutenants and investigators, down from a high of 42 in 1998, the DEC said.
DEC Commissioner Pete Grannis said yesterday that another restructuring was in the works.
Charles Johncox has been named major and the bureau’s new statewide coordinator, while Scott Florence has been named captain.
Johncox is a 26-year veteran of the DEC’s Division of Law Enforcement, and Florence is an experienced bureau investigator, the DEC said.
Both officers will provide direction and oversight to bureau investigators across the state, work to enhance the intelligence unit within the DEC’s Division of Law Enforcement and coordinate the bureau’s various undercover operations, the DEC said.
Robert Moore, executive director of the Albany-based Environmental Advocates of New York, said yesterday that the restructuring was good news, considering the reduction in DEC staffing under Pataki.
In April, Environmental Advocates accused the DEC of failing to enforce the federal Clean Water Act for the past 15 years and cited the reduction of DEC staff as one of the reasons for the agency’s failure.
Moore welcomed changes that could better equip the DEC to conduct its work on behalf of the environment and also praised Grannis for re-establishing the posts of major and captain, and changing the bureau’s reporting procedures.
“This is another example of Commissioner Grannis’ rebuilding efforts,” Moore said.
The new positions will also give the DEC command-level officers to interact on a more regular basis with other law enforcement agencies, including the state police, the state Attorney General’s Office and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the DEC said.
The Environmental Crimes Bureau never went out of existence, but no one has been coordinating the bureau’s statewide efforts, DEC spokesman Yancey Roy said. Rather than reporting to regional captains, Bureau staff will report to Johncox and Florence, he said.
“The Division of Law Enforcement believes this changes things,” Roy said. “Instead of reporting to someone with a day-to-day focus, they will be reporting to people who focus on investigations. The division believes this will boost its capability to do investigations.”