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Poisoning Our Water Report: Nearly 30% of the nations largest industrial, municipal, and federal facilities were in serious violation of the Clean Water Act at least once during a recent 15-month period. Poisoning Our Water: How the Government Permits Pollution also documents nearly 270 million pounds of toxic pollution released into U.S. waters in 1997.

Executive Summary:
When Congress passed the Clean Water Act in 1972, there was a visible water crisis that made a compelling case for action. The Cuyahoga River literally caught on fire in 1969, and a spill off the coast of California had left millions of gallons of oil along the coastline. The goals of the Act (clearly stated) were to return all waterways to fishable and swimmable conditions by 1983 and to eliminate the discharge of all pollutants by 1985. Nearly 30 years later, while the visible signs of pollution may not be as evident as a burning river, a careful examination of the facts reveals a continuing water pollution crisis in this country. Approximately 40% of our waters are still not safe for swimming or fishing; there have been nearly 30,000 beach closings and advisories since 1988; and in 1998, 47 states issued fish consumption advisories because of high levels of dangerous chemicals.

In order to look at the nation's continued failure to move toward the goals of the Clean Water Act, this report summarizes the hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic chemicals discharged to our nation's waterways by analyzing data in the Toxics Release Inventory (TRI). Our summary of pollution, water body by water body, shows widespread toxic pollution of our rivers, lakes, and streams — large industrial facilities and sewage treatment plants dumped almost 270 million pounds of toxic chemicals into our waterways in 1997.

To explore the behavior of facilities discharging pollutants to our waterways, this report also examines the government's listing of facilities that are in "Significant Non-Compliance" with their Clean Water Act permits, information obtained through the Freedom of Information Act. Nearly 30% of major facilities examined were in Significant Non-Compliance with their Clean Water Act permits for at least one quarter from September, 1997 through December, 1998.

Among the report's other major findings:
The rivers receiving the largest amounts of toxic chemical releases were the Mississippi River, the Connequenessing Creek (PA), the Brazos River (TX), the Alafia River (FL), and the Houston Ship Channel (TX).
More than 8 million pounds of persistent toxic metals (like lead and mercury) were released into our waterways, an increase of more than 50% from the previous year and the largest amount since at least 1992.
Nearly 900,000 pounds of reproductive toxins (like toluene) were released into our waterways, an increase of 60% from the previous year and the largest amount released since at least 1992.
More than 2.5 million pounds of carcinogens (like vinyl chloride and benzene) were released into our waterways.
The top ten states with the greatest number of major facilities in Significant Non-Compliance were Texas, Florida, Ohio, New York, Alabama, Louisiana, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Tennessee, and North Carolina.
The top ten states with the highest percentage of major facilities in Significant Non-Compliance were Utah, Florida, Rhode Island, Ohio, Alabama, Tennessee, Connecticut, Wyoming, Nebraska, and Indiana.
The continued dumping of hundreds of millions of pounds of toxic chemicals into our waterways and the significant violation of the Clean Water Act by nearly 2,000 large facilities stems from several specific policy failures. At the most basic level, the government, including both state agencies and the U.S. EPA, have failed to properly deter polluters. Meanwhile, the courts have eroded citizens’ ability to file suits in order to enforce the Clean Water Act. In addition, regulators have failed to progressively lower permitted amounts of pollution in order to move toward the zero-discharge goal of the Clean Water Act.

Community right-to-know laws have been another missed opportunity in the government's efforts to reduce and eliminate pollution. The Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act which created the TRI led to significant voluntary reductions in reported toxic releases in the early years that TRI data was released. In recent years, however, toxic pollution has begun to increase. Also, because TRI has focused on end-of-the-pipe releases, the generation of toxic waste has consistently risen even in cases where direct releases have decreased, meaning that government and industry are failing to prevent pollution.

In order to make progress toward the basic goals of the Clean Water Act, U.S. PIRG recommends the following:

Mandatory minimum penalties should be set that prevent polluters from profiting by breaking the law. This approach has proved successful for New Jersey, which passed a tough Clean Water Enforcement Act in 1990 which helped to reduce the state's overall ranking in terms of percentage of major facilities in Significant Non-Compliance to 41st (not including U.S. territories). In 1995 they were ranked 16th, and in 1997 they were ranked 36th by percentage of major facilities in Significant Non-Compliance.
The obstacles citizens face in the courts should be removed. This means that citizens should be able to sue for past violations and be able to sue federal facilities.
Congress and the EPA should expand the current right-to-know program in order to fully honor the public's right to know and to effectively use public information as a tool for eliminating pollution. This means requiring all polluting facilities to report all of their pollution, much of which is currently exempted. Congress and EPA should also require reporting not just on end-of-the-pipe pollution, but on toxic chemical use. This ‘materials accounting’ reporting is required in Massachusetts and New Jersey, and both states have seen dramatic reduction not just in direct releases, but in the generation of toxic wastes and in the overall use of toxic chemicals.

Source: U.S. PIRG. Compiled from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Toxics Release Inventory, 1997.
Phone: 202-546-9707 Fax: 202-546-2461 Email: uspirg@pirg.org
Web: www.pirg.org
Full Report: http://pirg.org/reports/enviro/poison/

The Delaware River
Total toxic pollution reported in 1997: 4,378,209 Pounds
States discharging the greatest amounts of toxic chemicals to the Delaware River in 1997.
State Toxic chemical release to water (pounds)
Percent of total release:
New Jersey 3,696,975 - 84.4%
Delaware 490,419 - 11.2%
Pennsylvania 190,815 - 4.4%

Polluters discharging the greatest amounts of toxic chemicals to the Delaware River in 1997. Facility Location Toxic chemical release to water (pounds)
Du Pont Chambers Works Deepwater, NJ 3,086,517
Du Pont Repauno Plant Gibbstown, NJ 410,074
Ciba Specialty Chemicals Corp. Newport, DE 185,302
Mallinckrodt Baker Inc. Phillipsburg, NJ 176,920
Allied-Signal Inc. Frankford Philadelphia, PA 107,022
Rodel Inc. Newark, DE 104,550
GMC NAO Wilmington Assembly Wilmington, DE 68,575
Star Enterprise Delaware City, DE 50,769
Sun Refining & Marketing Co. Marcus Hook, PA 36,845
Noramco Of Delaware Inc. Wilmington, DE 31,075

Toxic chemicals discharged in the greatest amounts to theDelaware River in 1997.
Chemical Toxic chemical release to water (pounds)
Nitrate compounds 2,636,493
Ammonia 352,277
Methanol 259,315
Sodium nitrite 238,230
Nitric acid 235,394
N,N-Dimethylformamide 113,768
Glycol ethers 112,273
1,3-Phenylenediamine 104,112
m-Dinitrobenzene 81,587
2,4-Dinitrophenol 48,869

Total carcinogens, persistent toxic metals, and reproductive toxins discharged to the Delaware River in 1997.
Carcinogens 172,150 Pounds
Persistent Toxic Metals 31,035 Pounds
Reproductive Toxins 92,548 Pounds
Total ** 278,660 Pounds

Polluters reporting the greatest amounts of carcinogens, persistent toxic metals, and reproductive toxins discharged to the Delaware River in 1997.

Top dischargers of carcinogens to the Delaware River in 1997 released to water (lbs)
Rodel Inc. Newark, DE 104,550
Noramco Of Delaware Inc. Wilmington, DE 21,360
Rohm & Haas Co. Philadelphia Philadelphia, PA 10,630
Du Pont Chambers Works Deepwater, NJ 10,466
Star Enterprise Delaware City, DE 6,782

Top dischargers of persistent toxic metals to the Delaware River in 1997. Persistent metals to water (lbs)
Du Pont Chambers Works Deepwater, NJ 14,001
Star Enterprise Delaware City, DE 7,670
Sun Refining & Marketing Co. Marcus Hook, PA 3,413
NVF Co. Yorklin Complex Yorklyn, DE 1,885
USS Fairless Works Fairless Hills, PA 1,700

Top dischargers of reproductive toxins* to the Delaware River in 1997. Reproductive toxins to water (lbs)
Du Pont Chambers Works Deepwater, NJ 82,802
Sun Refining & Marketing Co. Marcus Hook, PA 6,996
Noramco Of Delaware Inc. Wilmington, DE 2,520
Star Enterprise Delaware City, DE 150
Zeneca Specialties A Business New Castle, DE 28

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Below is an opinion to the above document:
by Carol R. Collier, Delaware River Basin Commission

The Delaware River Is Not What it Used to Be - That’s the Good News!

The release of a recent report on the health of the Delaware River and other national waterways made for splashy headlines, but failed to tell both sides of a complex story. The document, titled "Poisoning Our Water: How the Government Permits Pollution," was issued by the U.S. Public Interest Research Group (PIRG). In interpreting data generated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, PIRG concludes that of all U.S. rivers, the Delaware in 1997 received "the largest amount of carcinogen releases."

PIRG did this without apparently considering the river’s "assimilative capacity," or its ability to dilute or break down pollutants to a point where they do not exceed water quality standards. According to PIRG’s methodology, if you dump 10 pounds of a nitrate compound (by far the most common industrial discharge) in both a 20-gallon fish tank and the Delaware River, both bodies of water are equally polluted. PIRG does not take into account the size of the water body receiving the pollutant.

Such pseudo science ignores the truth — the Delaware River isn’t what it used to be!

Once foul smelling and oxygen starved along its tidal reach downstream of Trenton, N.J., the Delaware, from its headwaters in New York State’s Catskill Mountains to the Delaware Bay, today supports year-round fish populations, offering excellent trout, bass, walleye, striper, shad, and herring fisheries. Pleasure-craft marinas line waterfronts once visited only by commercial vessels. The river and many of its tributaries are flanked by attractive greenways and parks.

The fact is government programs are in place to protect existing water quality and address problems that still remain on a river that is under a lot of pressure — its lower reaches are bordered by heavy industry and the second largest oil refining-petrochemical center in the United States. The success of those programs, which are designed to achieve both economic vitality and a healthy environment, are well documented.

For almost 40 years, the Delaware River Basin Commission, a pioneer in environmental protection, has partnered with other government agencies and private organizations to clean up the Delaware and its feeder streams. Business and industry also have pitched in.

The commission started a toxics management program more than a decade ago. Two months ago it took an important step to ensure that water quality standards for certain toxic pollutants in the tidal Delaware are met as part of its continuing program to protect human health and aquatic life.

Two of the pollutants, 1,2 dichloroethane (DCE) and tetrachloroethene (PCE), have been identified by the EPA as probable human carcinogens. Both are solvents used in the manufacture of chemicals and in the dry cleaning business.

The fact that the commission is addressing these two substances as well as other toxins found in the river can not be found in the PIRG report. Nor is there any mention of the many other water quality success stories that can be tied to the work of the commission and the four basin states (New York, Pennsylvania, Delaware and New Jersey), as well as other government agencies and private groups that over the years have made water pollution abatement a top priority.

The truth is that competing water uses such as recreation and commerce will always defy the absolute resolution of all the problems facing the Delaware or any other major river.

Nevertheless, the Delaware today is the cleanest it’s been in 100 years. And it’s getting cleaner.

That, too, should make headlines.

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Report flawed: Delaware River cleanest it's been in generations

By Robert C. Shinn, Jr.
Commissioner of the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection

The U.S. Public Interest Research Group report highlighted in a recent Courier-Post article ("Study: Delaware River highly toxic," 2/18/00) turns reality on its head.

The lower Delaware river is far cleaner now than it has been at least since World War II.

What went unmentioned in articles about the PIRG report is that the report offered three suggestions for strengthening water quality efforts nationwide. Two of those suggestions, to use materials accounting in pollution prevention and right-to-know reporting and use of mandatory penalties, cited New Jersey as a model for the rest of the nation.

Jasmine Vasavada, toxic policy coordinator for N.J.PIRG, was quoted in the article as saying shad, which have returned to the rejuvenated Delaware River in the largest numbers in decades, cannot be eaten because of pollution. Vasavada ought to consult a list of fish consumption advisories. Shad, the featured delicacy at Lambertville's annual Shad Festival, is not listed.

The toxics "problem" PIRG claimed exists in the Delaware River is simply raw data, presented out of context and mixed with heated rhetoric. It is true that in the stretch of river roughly from Trenton to the Delaware Bay, there are fish consumption advisories for American eel, channel catfish, white catfish, white perch and striped bass, but all those advisories are for the lingering contamination from PCBs, dioxin and chlordane. Those substances were banned decades ago. None of the Delaware river discharges listed in the PIRG report are detectable in fish.

The PIRG report claims there were 27 N.J. companies in "significant noncompliance" with the Clean Water Act in 1997. PIRG was informed, in writing, by the N.J. Department of Environmental Protection in May 1999 that 25 of those violations were quirks of the automatic reporting system. The correct number is two but for reasons of its own, PIRG used the larger number.

New Jersey's waterways are not "quickly becoming a toxic soup", as one PIRG staffer claimed. The opposite is true. Industrial discharges are tightly regulated and have declined dramatically in quantity and toxicity. New Jersey's waterways are far healthier now than 10 or 20 years ago. I am confident that, thanks to watershed management and continuing reductions in point source emissions, they will be far cleaner 10 or 20 years from now.

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