Sludge Watch ==> Oregon DEQ: a Disaster

[Dave & Mary Boyd]

Just so you know what we're up against here in Oregon, Steve Duin at The
Oregonian (the Portland newspaper) has written several fine articles about
how the DEQ is not doing their job, rather they're "an emasculated,
isolated, compromised disaster."



Here is the list of articles published so far:



Just how green is our valley? (The Oregonian, Aug. 23, 2007)

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf?/base/news/1187904311290160.xml&coll=7



A fine mess at Oregon DEQ (The Oregonian, Sep 6, 2007)

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf?/base/news/1189041947271250.xml&coll=7



Watchdog? No, the DEQ is a lapdog (The Oregonian, Sep 9, 2007)

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf?/base/news/1189216538286520.xml&coll=7




Wasting a true believer at DEQ (The Oregonian, Oct. 4, 2007)

http://www.oregonlive.com/news/oregonian/steve_duin/index.ssf?/base/news/1191459311127510.xml&coll=7




The dirty little secrets at DEQ (The Oregonian, Oct. 7, 2007)

http://www.oregonlive.com/oregonian/stories/index.ssf?/base/news/1191635731216240.xml&coll=7



And here's one of these articles:



WATCHDOG?  NO, THE DEQ IS A LAPDOG



Sunday, September 09, 2007

The Oregonian

I n a state where people take pride in their devotion to the natural world,
you might think the agency assigned to safeguard Oregon's environmental
quality would be independent of the industries it regulates.

You would assume the agency has the investigative tools and financial means
to monitor air and water quality, and aggressively pursue the polluters.

You would bet that progressives in the Legislature and the governor's office
would consider the environment a top priority.

You would expect the attorney general's office would leap to supply the
legal muscle when the agency squares off against the lawbreakers.

And you would be flat-out wrong on each and every count.

Oregon's Department of Environmental Quality is an emasculated, isolated,
compromised disaster. To evaluate the mess, you need to understand the
mission. "People don't have a clear idea," agency director Stephanie Hallock
said, "of what we are tasked to do."

The DEQ is not asked to monitor potential polluters. It is not empowered to
take offenders to court; nor is the agency challenged, Hallock said, "to
address the true sources of pollution . . . or opine whether or not someone
is a good operating facility. Our job is to make sure they operate within
the law."

True . . . but that mission comes with two smelly footnotes. Thanks to the
Legislature, the DEQ no longer has authority over the environmental fallout
of the timber industry and the agriculture community. As Bill Blosser of the
state's Environmental Quality Commission notes, that means the DEQ can only
"put the screws" to industry and cities on water quality and runoff issues,
not agriculture wherein the vast majority of the problem resides.

Worse, the Legislature has willfully underfunded the DEQ so that it is
powerless to enforce the law. "That," Blosser said, "is a longstanding
tactic of the Legislature."

As it is, Hallock said, 64 percent of the agency's funding comes from the
businesses it regulates. That is a powerful disincentive -- that's right,
disincentive -- to hold those businesses accountable, and a clear signal of
just whom the DEQ aims to serve and seeks to please.

"It always appeared to me," said former state Sen. Charlie Ringo,
D-Beaverton, "that the DEQ was industry's lap dog. During the '90s, the DEQ
was so constantly browbeat by the Republican leadership that it got used to
acting in a subservient way toward polluting industries."

And this didn't bother those Greenpeace-lovin', Earth Day-swoonin', organic
hempsters in the Democratic Party? Nope. Ringo rarely if ever saw signs the
environment or DEQ operations were of any concern to Democrats, including
Gov. Ted Kulongoski. Hallock, Ringo said, "could have been very, very
aggressive in protecting the environment and taking on certain industries. I
don't think Governor Kulongoski wanted that to occur."

When Hallock -- who took over in 2000 and will retire next May -- was
"drafted" for the job, she said she was "told point-blank I needed to fix
the relationship between the agency and the Legislature. My job was to build
credibility."

With Oregonians? No, with the companies that were paying for permits,
strip-mining Ross Island or funding new industry-friendly turbidity
standards in area rivers.

The result, said Issa Simpson, the DEQ local's union rep, is a culture that
kowtows to industry to get funding, a culture more impressed by politics
than science, a culture where the employees in the field -- and on the
rivers -- are just as depressed and just as outraged . . .

. . . as you should be.

Steve Duin: 503-221-8597; 1320 S.W. Broadway, Portland, OR 97201
steveduin at news.oregonian.com http://blog.oregonlive.com/steveduin

(c)2007 The Oregonian
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