State permit for industrial runoff won't safeguard water quality, public health, groups say

Atlanta - The state Environmental Protection Division's new requirements for controlling pollution in stormwater runoff from over 3,500 industrial facilities across in Georgia - ranging from poultry plants and feedlots to chemical facilities and power plants to landfills and junkyards - fail to protect human health and violate the Clean Water Act, say three river conservation groups. In an appeal filed Monday, the groups also say the newly issued "general industrial stormwater permit" is largely unenforceable.

Generally, when stormwater from an industrial facility runs off into a stream identified by the state as having impaired water quality due to high levels of mercury, arsenic or other contaminants, the industry must sample its runoff for the contaminant to prevent further degradation. Under the new permit, however, if the stream is polluted with fecal coliform, industries are exempt from testing for the contaminant. Fecal coliform is a bacteria associated with human and animal waste that indicates high levels of pathogens harmful to human health. In 2002, Georgia's list of impaired waters included 248 stream segments that exceeded health standards for fecal coliform, many of them downstream from poultry processing plants, sewage land application systems, and other sources of bacteria covered by this permit.

"EPD is ignoring one of Georgia's most worrisome water quality problems, that of disease-carrying microbes in our surface waters," said Jim Grode, staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, which filed the appeal on behalf of the three conservation groups. Industries discharging into these streams are also exempt from developing stormwater pollution prevention plans that are consistent with federally required cleanup plans.

Further, the new general permit lacks strong enforcement mechanisms and provides inadequate public access to information about what is going into the state's waters, the groups say. Industries are not required to submit their monitoring data or their pollution prevention plans to the state, making oversight by the state or the public virtually impossible.

The previous general stormwater permit expired in 2003. The EPD informally convened an ad hoc "stakeholders" group composed mostly of industry representatives, but also including environmental organizations and regulators, in an effort to reach consensus on disputed issues for the new permit. Prior to issuing the final permit in March, however, the agency changed key sections in favor of industry, the groups say.

"We are astounded that after a long, difficult negotiation process, EPD ignored the interests of the public and the environment in favor of making the permit easy on industry," said Elizabeth Nicholas, of the Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, which participated in the permit review process.

The groups' appeal also cites the permit's allowance of case-by-case determinations for permit conditions for individual facilities with no provision for public participation, and its failure to require consideration of the effects of polluted runoff on threatened and endangered species.