From the Charleston paper, an article about DHEC.
Irate senators slam DHEC, kill 7
environmental bills
Friday, June 5, 1998
By ARLIE PORTER
Of The Post and Courier staff
State senators did not budge from their objections to state environmental
regulators lowering water quality standards, and seven environmental bills were
killed Thursday as a result.
"They're dead. They're gone," said Doug Bryant, commissioner of the S.C.
Department of Health and Environmental Control. Bryant said the bills were
universally accepted and included provisions like prohibiting oil filters from being
dumped in landfills.
They also included expanded state recycling measures, he said.
DHEC, however, was slammed by senators who questioned the agency for
lowering water quality standards, including in the Cooper River. DHEC failed to
justify the need to lower standards, said state Sen. Phil Leventis, D-Sumter.
Leventis and Sens. Arthur Ravenel, R-Mount Pleasant, and Glenn
McConnell, R-Charleston, were also suspicious of the lobbying campaign waged
by industries to lower water quality standards. Those lobbying to lower
standards included the S.C. Manufacturers Association, the Berkeley County
Water and Sanitation Authority, the Charleston Commissioners of Public Works,
the North Charleston Sewer District and Westvaco Corp. of North Charleston.
The Charleston-area industries and wastewater utilities were concerned with
studies that show the Cooper River is at or already below state water quality
standards, and persuaded DHEC to lower standards, thus allowing more waste
discharges into the river - if they prove no harmful effect upon aquatic species.
"We believe DHEC is much too cozy with industry and doing the bidding of
industry. They're sitting together in the gallery now," Leventis said in a phone
interview.
"It would be fair to say that DHEC is on notice that although they see
themselves as the champions of the environment, others don't see them that
way," Leventis said.
"The trend for the country seems to be to clean up things, and in South
Carolina, it's to let more pollution in our rivers," McConnell said.
Last-minute negotiations focused on the Office of Ocean and Coastal
Resource Management, a formerly independent state agency that was placed
under the DHEC division of Environmental Quality Control.
Nancy Vincent, a spokeswoman for the S.C. Coastal Conservation League,
urged DHEC to support returning Coastal Resource to its independent status,
but talks fell through.
Bryant said that it's appropriate that Coastal Resource fall under the DHEC
deputy director.
A disappointed Vincent, however, said that's to keep the agency from
objecting to DHEC's lowering of water quality standards.
Bryant was disappointed, too, that DHEC legislation, which was worked on
for a year, failed because of Senate objections.
"It's not a good situation for the people in the state when pieces of good
legislation are killed out of hand like that," Bryant said.
Arlie Porter covers Charleston County. Contact him at 937-5548 or at
porter@postandcourier.com
Copyright c 1998 Charleston.Net. All Rights Reserved.
charleston.net
The parts that chap my cheeks are the prohibition of oil filters in landfills (GRNO wants to dispose of crank case oil itself, for goodness sake!)and the part about DHEC rolling over for industry. Once again, it depends on who you are.
It will be interesting to see the Sierra Club's legislation next year.
Charles
|
