The Environmental Protection Agency issued a record number of enforcement actions and penalties for Fiscal Year 1999, including:
3,935 civil judicial and administrative actions, the highest in the last three years Criminal defendants were sentenced to a record 208 years of prison time for committing environmental crimes.
Two of the largest water industry actions were taken against New York City, requiring filtration of the Croton Water Supply, and the city of Atlanta, resolving water pollution violations throughout the city?s sanitary sewer system. The toughest prison sentence, 13 years, was handed down to a Florida man for dumping hazardous waste into the Tampa sewer system.
?The Clinton/Gore Administration is committed to ensuring that industrial polluters pay the price for disregarding America?s environmental laws and jeopardizing the public?s health,? said EPA Administrator Carol M. Browner. ?This year?s enforcement statistics again send a strong signal that we will unfailingly take action against those who illegally pollute the environment of our country.?
The Agency referred 403 civil cases to the U.S. Department of Justice ? down slightly from the 411 referrals the previous year ? and issued a record 1,654 administrative complaints, as well as 1,878 administrative compliance orders and field citations. The $3.6 billion value of enforcement settlements included $3.4 billion in injunctive relief ? actions required to correct violations and cleanup Superfund sites ? and $236.8 million in Supplemental Environmental Projects (SEPs) ? additional environmental improvements contained in settlements.
The 208 years of criminal sentences imposed by the courts in FY 1999 was about 12 years higher than the previous record for incarceration. EPA last year referred 241 criminal cases for prosecution ? compared with 266 referrals the previous year ? and assessed $61.6 million in criminal fines ? compared with $92.3 million the previous year. Taken together, the combined civil and criminal referrals are the third largest in EPA history and combined amount of civil and criminal penalties is the second largest in EPA history. The agency also recovered from responsible parties an estimated $230 million to clean up abandoned hazardous waste sites under the Superfund program.
TMDL Revisions
EPA is proposing to revise the Water Quality Planning and Management regulation to remove the requirement that states, territories and authorized tribes submit to EPA for review by April 1, 2000, lists of impaired and threatened waterbodies. EPA?s current regulations interpret the provision in section 303(d) of the Clean Water Act for submission of lists to EPA ?from time to time?? to require states, territories and authorized tribes to submit lists on April 1 of every even-numbered year. EPA is proposing to remove the requirement that such lists be submitted in 2000. EPA is not proposing to change the existing regulatory requirement that subsequent lists be submitted on April 1, 2002, and on April 1 of subsequent even-numbered years.
Enforcement Actions
