SC industries may get breaks from pollution rules because of coronavirus
With the coronavirus hurting businesses across South Carolina, state regulators are in some cases relaxing environmental protection requirements for industries they say have suffered as the disease pandemic sweeps across the state.
Skeptics question whether the state’s initiative is necessary, but the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control says industries have cut production and their consultants are “operating at a reduced level.’’
That could make it hard for struggling companies to meet certain requirements because they have fewer employees, DHEC said.
Already, the state agency has eased requirements on at least five environmental rules and is asking businesses, government and others if they need breaks on other environmental regulations.
Industries and businesses have hit DHEC with more than 100 questions, most of them “seeking flexibility’’ because they are short-staffed, the department said in an email Thursday afternoon.
“We’re working with facilities individually to ensure those still operating are complying with applicable emissions or discharge limitations,’’ a statement Thursday from DHEC said. “We’re also addressing concerns facilities have expressed with meeting regulatory requirements, while also complying with any state or local government orders in place to prevent the spread of the virus.’’
In South Carolina, scores of businesses are closed or scaled back because of concerns that the disease could spread if they operate normally, or at all. Laid off workers are deluging the state with requests for unemployment benefits.
The agency says it will not relax critical protections for the environment. Breaks granted so far are largely deadline extensions for filing pollution reports.
But DHEC’s efforts, which dovetail with federal initiatives to ease certain environmental regulations during the disease outbreak, have conservationists concerned. They question whether easing up on industries is necessary.
Environmentalists say the federal and state plans could cause more air and water pollution if DHEC and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency aren’t careful. They also question how an economic struggle prevents compliance with environmental laws.
“”The EPA has already shown us that they are primarily looking out for polluters, that’s why it’s so important that our state agency remain committed to their mission of protecting public health and the environment,’’ Congaree Riverkeeper Bill Stangler said in an email to The State this week.
Exploiting the pandemic?
Nationally, the issue has become such a concern to environmental groups and some state regulators that it has sparked legal action. The Natural Resources Defense Council said Thursday it was suing the EPA over the department’s recent decision to limit enforcement during the coronavirus outbreak.
In South Carolina, Stangler said he is particularly worried about DHEC granting blanket exemptions to environmental rules.
The department should make exceptions in specific situations only if a company has made a convincing case, said Stangler, whose group keeps track of pollution discharges in Columbia-area rivers. The metropolitan area regularly suffers from wastewater discharge pollution during storms.
“There may be situations that arise from business to business,’’ he said. “But in my mind, every instance of that should be made on a case-by-case basis.’’
Buzz Williams, founder of the Chattooga Conservancy in northwest South Carolina, said the EPA-led effort to ease rules for businesses is an attempt by the Trump Administration to further its agenda of rolling back environmental regulations.
The EPA’s push is having a spillover effect on DHEC, the upstate environmentalist said.
“Clearly, they are just exploiting the pandemic,’’ said Williams, whose organization works to protect the federally designated wild and scenic Chattooga River on the South Carolina-Georgia border.
“I’ve tried to be fair about it,’’ Williams said. “But you would have to be living under a rock the past couple of years to not know the Trump administration is doing everything it can to favor industry.’’
A key question is whether DHEC will ease up on enforcement cases against polluting industries that contaminate the air and water by failing to follow the rules, environmentalists said. DHEC says it has no plan to ease up on enforcement cases.
Williams and Alan Hancock, a former DHEC air regulator now with the S.C. Coastal Conservation League, said it’s ironic that efforts by government agencies to protect the environment could be scaled back at a time of a public health threat like the coronavirus. Environmental rules protect public health, they said.
“This isn’t just an environmental issue,’’ Hancock said. “These are laws that protect us.’’
So far, the agency has delayed the deadline for industries and wastewater plants to report the amount of pollution they are discharging into rivers and lakes across South Carolina. Those with discharge permits to release pollution into rivers have until May 31, instead of reporting in April.
That’s notable because discharge monitoring reports tell the agency whether municipal sewage plants, industries and others are complying with the legal limits on how much pollution they dump into rivers. Industries can be fined for releasing pollution above legally permitted limits.
The department also has delayed certain stormwater discharge reports from being submitted and it has extended the deadline for industries to say how much air pollution they have released.
An association that represents some of the state’s biggest industries says it’s glad DHEC has taken steps to help businesses during the coronavirus pandemic.
“The South Carolina Manufacturers Alliance appreciates DHEC’s understanding of this unprecedented situation we are all facing and their willingness to work with companies to comply with regulatory requirements by allowing temporary flexibility in the timing and methods for reporting,’’ the alliance’s director, Sara Hazzard, said in an email.
National and state issues
Nationally, the Trump Administration has been under fire since the 2016 election over a systematic effort to ease environmental rules that the president says are too burdensome on businesses.
Under Trump, the federal government had by late 2019 relaxed or attempted to ease nearly 100 rules that protect the environment and wildlife, according to The New York Times. As the coronavirus pandemic has taken hold, the EPA announced it would ease its enforcement for non-compliance with some environmental laws.
A March 26 letter from the EPA to “all governmental and private sector partners’’ says the EPA does not plan to seek penalties for violations of “routine’’ environmental monitoring, certain types of testing, laboratory analyses and other issues that the EPA agrees were caused by the Covid-19 pandemic.
The decision also has come as the agency has stymied efforts to tighten pollution laws. The agency bounced a plan to more tightly regulate small soot particles that a recent Harvard University study showed can make people exposed to them more vulnerable to the coronavirus.
A person living for decades in a county with high levels of fine-grained soot, known as fine particulate matter, is 15 percent more likely to die from the coronavirus than someone in a less polluted area, according to a New York Times story that references the study.
In South Carolina, state environmental regulators say they are committed to protecting the environment.
“While some administrative flexibility has been granted to assist with our businesses and facilities, the department will not waive any regulatory requirements, which exist for protecting our state’s environmental resources and the health of our residents,’’ the agency said in an email.
This story was originally published April 16, 2020 at 3:37 PM.
