Let's call the EPD what it really is

When I started learning about coal and the impact a coal plant would have on my community, someone with many years of experience in environmental work referred to the Environmental Protection Division as the "Environmental Permitting Division." As a novice, I thought that was pretty clever. It isn't now, unfortunately.

Almost two months ago in this blog I asked if ANY state agency/department in the state is protecting our health. There are no searchable news releases from the Georgia Department of Community Health concerning the impact of coal plants on the state's citizens (there are from other health organizations such as the American Lung Association). That begs the question of why, with high asthma rates among children, and  high cardiopulmonary disease rates in adults, DCH isn't at the front line on coal plant emissions in the state (both existing and proposed).

It is for sure we can't count on the Environmental "Protection" Division to protect our health by reducing pollutants spewing into the air or dumping into our waterways. Based on his support of adding new coal plants in the state, Gov. Deal isn't an advocate for our health. He allowed Allen Barnes to continue as Director of EPD after the state's largest fish kill occurred on his watch, followed by the EPD's overdue admission that it hadn't properly monitored the company responsible for the dumping that killed the fish. Another fish kill happened on Brier Creek, and another was reported in Commission Creek. And yet Deal was happy to allow the E"P"D leader to continue.

Allen Barnes has left his job at E"P"D and his replacement, Jud Turner, a lobbyist, opened the door for a warm welcome from environmentalists by saying just after his appointment was announced, that he will “adopt the policies of his predecessor in trying to keep economic development coming into the state while regulating its impact on the environment.”

My comments submitted to the E"P"D during the last air permit hearing on Plant Washington included this:

The EPD’s mission is:

protects and restores Georgia’s environment. We take the lead in ensuring clean air, water and land. With our partners, we pursue a sustainable environment that provides a foundation for a vibrant economy and healthy communities.

Your vision statement includes:

Georgia’s environment is healthy and sustainable. Natural resources are protected and managed to meet the needs of current and future generations.


Your principles include:

EPD serves the public by implementing state laws, rules, and policies to protect human health and the environment.

EPD applies and enforces environmental laws and standards in a consistent, fair, and timely manner. 

EPD is proactive and results-oriented, and helps develop new approaches to meet Georgia’s environmental challenges. 

Georgians have a right to and a responsibility for a healthy environment and the conservation of our natural resources. 

Georgia’s environment consists of diverse ecosystems of interrelated and interdependent components, including people, plants, animals and their habitats, as well as air, water, and land. 

Environmental stewardship, protection of human health, and economic vitality are compatible and mutually beneficial goals. 


Several concerned citizens joined me that night and said the E"P"D's job is to protect the natural resources in our state and the health of the people who live here. Economic vitality is mentioned in the last part of the department's vision, but it seems that the Department has narrowed its work to solely focus on the economic vitality of a few private companies and their shareholders.


While I was out of the office earlier this week (and mulling over any number of topics for an update to this blog) the Columbus Ledger-Enquirer was working on an editorial which was quickly picked up and circulated today by the very people (environmentalists) that Turner should be courting. Tom Crawford thought it was worth quoting in full (and I agree):

Jud Turner, Gov. Nathan Deal’s choice to head the Georgia Environmental Protection Division, will officially succeed EPD Director Allen Barnes in the new year. At Wednesday’s meeting of the state Natural Resources Board, Turner pledged, as reported by Morris News Service, to “adopt the policies of his predecessor in trying to keep economic development coming into the state while regulating its impact on the environment.”

The reaction of Georgia’s environmental community was almost certainly less than enthusiastic. And that skepticism might ultimately have less to do with Turner’s qualifications and values (or with those of his predecessor) than with the years-old conflict inherent in the agency he has been tapped to lead.

Barnes, who has led the EPD for slightly more than two years after succeeding Columbus native Carol Couch, acknowledged his conflicts with environmentalists but said part of the office’s responsibility is “to find that balance between a sustainable economy and a sustainable environment.” Turner echoed the observation: “There is a balance, as Allen has talked about, between economic sustainability and environmental sustainability.”

Of course such a balance is essential, in Georgia and everywhere else. So what’s the problem?

The problem is that while both economic development and environmental protection are critical, an agency officially titled the Environmental Protection Division should be primarily — perhaps exclusively — concerned with the latter.
The fact that Georgia’s top-ranking environmental watchdog is expected to concern himself/herself with economics, beyond the obvious responsibility of managing the department’s budget, goes to the chronic structural dysfunction of this part of state government. And that structural problem goes all the way back to the Carter administration. (That’s Jimmy Carter the governor, not Carter the later president.)

As part of a well-intentioned and efficiency-minded reorganization of state government, EPD was placed under the Department of Natural Resources, largely an economic development agency. As the decades have gone by, the tension between industrial and environmental interests — a familiar tension, but in Georgia one that plays out under the same bureaucratic roof — has made the merger look more and more like a shotgun wedding.

Environmental protectors should be protecting the environment … period. Surely there are ample forces in Georgia government to effect that balance to which the current and future EPD directors alluded. (Rest assured that in the Georgia General Assembly, business interests will be devoutly represented.)

Turner, like Barnes before him, would have a tough enough job just protecting Georgia’s precious and beautifully diverse environment. Having to worry about economic growth as well shouldn’t be part of his mission. But until Georgia leaders rethink the role and importance of environmental protection, EPD is destined to remain a second-tier bureaucracy.

In this time of budget crunching and nickel squeezing, will the Governor's next spending reduction suggestion be to simply roll the E"P"D into the state's Department of Economic Development and let them pursue and permit more companies to degrade and poison our environment? At the current pace, it would be in keeping with the state's safeguarding of our natural resources and our health.

    

New Leadership Signals Trouble Ahead for Plant Washington

My friends at SACE have summed up the release of the air permit for Plant Washington and the new direction expected to be chosen by newly elected Cobb EMC directors. Read their blog here.

Why isn't the Department of Public Health speaking up for us?

As has been evidenced this year, citizens can't count on the state's Environmental Protection Division to lead in protecting our natural resources or health from pollution. In the past few days our state Attorney General has filed two briefs opposing rules which will significantly reduce toxins in the air we breath and the water we count on for so many things.

So, I wonder, why isn't the Department of Public Health (DPH) speaking out in favor of tighter pollution regulations and oversight? The DPH web site says,"DPH is the lead department entrusted by the people of the state of Georgia with the ultimate responsibility for the health of the communities and the entire population."

Even their own data reflect high rates of birth defects (mercury is a neurotoxin), cancer, heart and lung disease, and stroke, all of which can result from exposure to dirty air. Can they not figure out that coal plants are pumping TONS of hazardous pollutants into the air each year? Have they not noticed because the policy makers are in Atlanta at 2 Peachtree Street? They don't see the coal stacks from their back yard or wipe coal ash dust from their front porch rocking chairs each day.

Is there ANY state agency in Georgia that is really invested in protecting our health, our air, and our water, from the pollution and health effects that have been documented for decades?      

Just wondering.

Mr. President-Throw Us a Bone!

Dear Mr. President-

Could you throw us a bone? Please? Citizens have waited patiently (20 years alone on tougher Clean Air Act Standards for mercury and other hazardous pollutants) to have cleaner air (and therefore cleaner water, it is a great 2 for 1 opportunity). Since tougher standards began to be discussed, I have gone through a pregnancy, delivered a baby, and raised that child to be an adult. That seems like enough time to get around to helping all of us have cleaner air to breathe.

It's hard to be patient when the rates of heart and lung disease, stroke, asthma, cancer, developmental problems in newborns and children, continue to increase as a result of dirty air. 20 years.

You can do what's right and change your mind on the smog emissions. Really, we'll forgive you. Everyone makes mistakes.

If you think making this announcement on the Friday afternoon of a long weekend will make the backlash go away, it won't. The American Lung Association has already announced it is heading back to court since it has waited two years while you have promised these things would happen.

I can't wait for November to get here, or maybe not, at this pace, to find out if your Administration is willing to stand up to the big industry lobbyists who think it is o.k. to continue to pollute our air and degrade our natural resources (The New York Times ran a column about that, "Profits Before Environment" earlier this week). One of those industry heavy weights, Chris Hobson of the Southern Company, said that mercury emissions are "hazardous" when he testified in May at the EPA's Public Hearing on the proposed Clean Air Act Standards (his company reported $2B in profits last year while spewing mercury into the air I breathe every day).

And I've tried to be hopeful, really. I think we should get out of Iraq and Afghanistan faster, but I appreciate your concern for protecting Americans and those who will be victims of harsh governments. I was in the trenches with you on health care reform. I urged John Barrow to please do what his constituents thought was best. I've been back to talk to him about the proposed Clean Air Act Standards (his staff probably recognizes my voice now). I asked John to support your efforts to increase the debt ceiling while closing loop holes for companies making billions and paying little or no taxes (you know some of those guys, like Jeffrey Immelt at GE. He's been to your office before to talk about the economy and jobs creation, right?)  

So Mr. President, don't mess up in November. Make good on what millions of Americans have waited so patiently for. Tom Pierce may have said it best at the EPA hearing in May when he said, "I would urge you to turn a deaf ear to those who say they need more time to kill us."

And I won't even mention the Tar Sands Pipeline.

Katherine Helms Cummings