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8/24/2024
WT Staff
 August 24, 2024 859 am PDT
EPA criminal prosecutions under the Safe Drinking Water Act
Yesterday's brief touched on "How the Environmental Protection Agency is set to safeguard drinking water sources". Beyond identifying emerging contaminant threats, monitoring and enforcing pollutant discharge limits as per the Clean Water Act, EPA is also monitors and enforcing Safe Drinking Water Act regulations for more than one hundred and fifty thousand public drinking water facilities in the USA.
US EPA delegates "primacy", the primary responsibility for compliance monitoring of public drinking water facilities to State and Tribal authorities. Ongoing work to ensure safe water is a partnership between the water facilities and operators, States, Tribes and federal EPA. EPA ECHO - Enforcement and Compliance History On-line logs information on each licensed public water facility in the USA along with details of the last twelve quarterly reporting periods. From this resource, we can see which facilities are sourced from surface water: rivers, lakes, reservoirs or groundwater wells, the population served and the compliance status. Matters of non-compliance are listed by their dates of occurrence and status, whether resolved, archived, or unaddressed. Those facilities with significant violations show up on the EPA Serious Violator list, see the list for California, here.
Most of the time, water facilities operate safely as planned. On occasion, equipment fails, accidents happen, security is breached, circumstances are difficult, procedures are overlooked and mistakes are made. When the drinking water facilities take the appropriate responsive action and notify the authorities, these matters generally do not lead to felony charges. It is when drinking water facility operators, owners or managers are knowingly or negligently operating in violation of the law and in violation of the public trust, including falsifying documents, obstruction of justice, conspiracy to operate in violation of the laws, these are circumstances for criminal charges. From the establishment of the EPA Office of Criminal Enforcement Forensics and Training in 1982 to the vesting of complete authority in 1988, with full power to enforce the environmental and drinking water laws, EPA has logged 867 criminal convictions under the Clean Water Act; 19 criminal prosecutions under the Safe Drinking Water Act.
The first SDWA felony investigated and prosecuted in a federal district court arose from a mobile home park in Arizona in 1992. In this case, the owner-operator of the mobile home park, also responsible for the SDWA permit was convicted for falsifying documents. The false information concerned the bacterial analysis of water supplied to park residents. Sentencing for this betrayal of public trust included a 12 month probation emphasizing the SDWA requirement for accurate and timely reporting of water quality test results to authorities. The defendant was further required to run statement declaring the SDWA violation in a mobile home industry periodical.
The most recent criminal prosecution under the SDWA came in 2023, the nineteenth such case in the USA. In this case, the manager of a public drinking water facility in Iowa was convicted on the felony violation of SDWA Section 18, the defendant had falsified the disinfectant chlorine levels, where investigators determined chlorine had not been monitored at all. The sentencing in this 2023 case was not much different than the first conviction in 1992, one year probation and this time with a $500 federal fine and a $100 special assessment fee.
See the CrimeBox for cases from the EPA Criminal Investigations unit, a weekly series profiling defendants, circumstances, judgements and sentencing issued by federal district court judges here, taken from the 72 CWA prosecutions in California, from 1989 to present.
Past CrimeBox briefs here pertaining to CWA historic prosecutions in New York, Ohio, Georgia and Louisiana.
WT HAB Tracker from the satellite monitoring program of the NOAA National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science(NCCOS) and State sources where available
Louisiana: The latest image of southeast LA supplied by the NCCOS captured Aug 23 at wind speed 8.1 mph is partially cloud obscured. The prior image of Aug 22 is much more revealing, demonstrating the extreme high concentration, lakewide bluegreen blooms in Lac des Allemands, Bayou Fortier and Baie Des Deux Chenes. Entire water bodies appear over 4 million cells per 100 ml concentration now, Lac Allemands, Bayou Fortier and Lake Fields heading for the top of the color scale for concentrations we can no longer quantify. The local environmental health authorities may have cyanotoxin test results available, more to follow. Lakes Verret and Palourde lakewide HABs edge upward 900 thousand cells, Black Bay also increasing in concentration, here seen 1 million cells per 100 ml. Check out the latest satellite image of southeast Louisiana water bodies from NCCOS here.
Lake Erie west basin
The latest satellite image of Lake Erie West basin was captured August 23 at wind speed 4.9 mph, a mostly clear image of west basin demonstrating the expansion of HAB activity toward the north, beyond the international border into Canada. The extent of this bloom has certainly expanded, the concentration has also increased over 24 hours, the hot spot at Maumee Bay State Park up to 5 million cells, the Maumee Bay Toledo area widespread HAB up to 3 million cells concentration. See the latest NCCOS satellite image of Lake Erie west basin here.
New York
From the NYS DEC notifications center, 142 HABs are confirmed in New York State, up from 131 Friday. First HABs of the season have been confirmed for Delta Lake and Indian Falls Lake. See the impacted water bodies list here.
The latest image of Lake Champlain HAB was captured Aug 23 at unknown wind speed, the first clear image since August 14. After many days with no view of the water, we see here the widespread HAB in Baie Missisquoi still filling in the bay area, extending to Alburg-Swanton bridge with a high concentration 800 to 900 thousand cells per 100 ml, a hot patch along the east shore around the international border 1 to 2 million cells. On August 14, the concentration range in the northeast water was as high as 3 million cells per 100 ml. See the NCCOS satellite image here.
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