Gov. Frank Murkowski has labeled as rubbish recent assertions by a Homer-based environmental watchdog group that his administration has been too lax on enforcing state anti-pollution laws against large corporations.
Speaking Tuesday to the Soldotna Chamber of Commerce, where he'd come to sign an education-funding bill into law, the governor was clearly angry with the Cook Inlet Keeper for the allegations leveled in its report released June 8.
That report, written by Lois Epstein, a professional engineer working for the Keeper, said it appeared the state was spending more time enforcing auto-emission standards in the metropolitan areas and leveling fines against individuals, than in going after petroleum and other large-industry polluters with histories of causing environmental damage.
The report, entitled "Cops Off The Beat: Problems with Alaska's Environmental Enforcement Under the Murkowski Administration", based its assertions on an analysis of enforcement data compiled by the Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation between Dec. 1, 2002 and Jan. 15, 2004.
Among other things, the report said that during the 13-month period there were no fines against industry, only against individuals for auto emissions in Anchorage and Fairbanks, and that there was an overwhelming emphasis on enforcing air pollution standards but a serious lack of enforcement where land and water pollution were concerned.
A DEC official issued a formal reply Thursday, but Murkowski said Tuesday that he took issue with what he called generalities tossed out by the Keeper report.
"It makes good headlines, but there is very little sound science behind their criticisms," he said. "We are prepared to respond as a state because we think we have the expertise to do it."
Allegations suggesting the state is not adequately protecting the environment are, "very frankly, rubbish," he said, adding that he resented the Keeper's assertions and was prepared to pit state experts against the Keeper's anytime.
"Let's have it out," he challenged.
In a letter sent to the Keeper June 17, Jim Bowden, chief investigator for the DEC's Environmental Crimes Unit, who maintains the agency's Complaint Automated Tracking System database, said it agreed with the Keeper that an effective regulatory program required adequate resources.
"As your report correctly notes, (DEC) Commissioner (Ernesta) Ballard has spoken out publicly in a number of different forums on this topic to 'assure all stakeholders that enforcement will be the predictable consequence of failure to comply,'" Bowden said.
But he said the Keeper report represented "an incomplete view" of the DEC's enforcement program and "fails to include any reference to the significant efforts undertaken by Commissioner Ballard to increase the department's resources to enforce the state's pollution control laws."
Additional staff, funding and a focus on fieldwork had boosted the department's enforcement capacity under Ballard, he said. He pointed to an additional full-time criminal investigator added in 2004, seven new positions in the air program in 2004, eight positions in water quality protection (two in fiscal year 2004, and six in 2005), 45 percent more spill drills conducted in 2004 than in fiscal year 2003, and 60 percent more spill prevention facility inspections conducted in 2004 than in 2003. Bowden also noted new legislation aimed at strengthening enforcement authority for water quality, sanitation and food safety.
Bowden said that while Keeper recommended additional enforcement attention be given to water quality violations, the report failed to inform readers that the federal National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit program currently administered by the Environmental Protection Agency is the primary enforcement authority for protecting water quality under the Clean Water Act.
He also said the 13-month time frame used in the report was too short to support any statistically valid conclusions, and that "the report inaccurately extrapolates incomplete information to make unsupported conclusions and the inflammatory statements made in the accompanying letter and press release," he said.
Epstein said Thursday she stands by her report. Contrary to Bowden's response, the report does not draw conclusions.
"It's very disappointing," Epstein said of the DEC response letter. "The main reason is that it confuses process with results."
Had Bowden acknowledged the DEC's own data in the report and then outlined how new positions had been added to beef up enforcement efforts, that would have been fine, she said. Bowden did not respond directly to any of the findings cited in the report, but did refer to them as conclusions, which was incorrect, she said.
Epstein, an expert on the oil industry, also said Bowden's labeling statements made in Keeper's letter to the state that accompanied the report and in its press release as inflammatory also was off target.
"I've been in this business for 20 years," she said. "I'm not known for making inflammatory statements."
She said it was almost as if they had not read the report, which used DEC's own data, but simply saw it as an environmental group taking a shot and dismissed it.
"They're in a kind of denial. Are they or are they not focusing on individuals rather than industry?" she said. "Why are they not, at a minimum, penalizing large spills?"
Lynda Giguere, public information officer for the DEC, said Bowden was referring only to the letter and press release. She said she wanted it made clear that Bowden was not accusing Epstein of making inflammatory statements, although DEC does believe she speculates on the data and made some false assumptions.
"We believe she tried to be precise and accurate in her report," Giguere said.
According to the report, during the 13-month period, only 7 percent of the enforcement actions were taken against the state's largest industries, i.e., oil production and related activities, tourism (including cruise ships), fishing-seafood processing, logging and mining, even though these industries have the greatest potential to pollute and represent 34 percent of the reported spills.
Epstein said the data showed an actual decline in the number of enforcement actions during the period, and that the top 10 oil and hazardous substance spills ‹ including five in oil production, three in mining and one each in categories for logging and "other" ‹ resulted in no penalties.
According to Giguere, DEC's Spill Prevention and Response Director Larry Dietrick said that of the top 10 spills, six never made it to the environment, two were winter spills to snow on tundra with minimal, low impact, and one was "nonspill." One more was a spill to soil that was cleaned up.
Dietrick said none of the spills exceeded the 18,000-gallon threshold, above which a dollar-per-gallon assessment applies. Such assessments are compensatory and remedial, Dietrick said. Spillers are liable for cleanup and costs incurred by the state. Cost recovery efforts extended to some 532 incidents totaled more than $1.5 million during approximately the same period of time, he said.
According to the Keeper report, the 2,356 spills reported during the period resulted in only five penalties for oil spill damages and none for other hazardous substance spillage, the report said.
The Keeper noted and applauded the state's efforts at controlling air pollution, especially in the major cities. Vital federal highway dollars, among other revenues, are tied to meeting federal air standards. But the report recommended that the state seek more and greater criminal fines for "egregious environmental conduct," and that it increase the number of enforcement actions against violators of water and land pollution requirements.
Epstein said enforcement against industry should have a higher priority than enforcement against individuals, and that at a minimum, the state should penalize those with high spill volumes, those with repeated releases, and those that spill in environmentally sensitive areas.
