Director's Blog
Analysis & Opinion
Oregon Zombie Discharge Permits Part 2
By Nina Bell • November 28, 2020 •How do you keep an agency from belly-flopping? Well, first off, if the agency has a history of responding to the political pressure to not do its job, trust history. Trust history over the vague assurances of agency officials who hasten to tell you that they have it all under control. And would you please just run along now and leave them alone!
Yeah, because on their watch, water pollution is getting so much better.
Having forced Oregon DEQ into a ...
Oregon Zombie Discharge Permits Walk the Land
by Nina Bell • November 20, 2020 •
For many years, the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) dealt with its desire to not regulate polluters by simply not issuing the required water pollution discharge permits. DEQ just ignored the Clean Water Act, which requires the permits to be reissued every five years in order to respond to new scientific information on pollution hazards and increasing pollution levels.
Issuing new permits meant that polluters would have to install ...
Covid-19 Shines a Spotlight on Government Failure
by Nina Bell • November 20, 2020 •
I stopped writing this blog when the pandemic hit. It was hard to concentrate. And, honestly, it was hard to be comfortable talking about environmental ills when a deadly virus was ravaging the world and our country. Even though environmental ills kill softly.
I truly hate to compare the ravages of Covid-19 to environmental issues but it just cannot be denied that one of my first sad observations was that the pandemic laid bare just how political ...
Ecology’s Nutrient General Permit for Puget Sound
by Nina Bell • April 18, 2020 •
When it comes to agencies’ not doing their jobs, there are two kinds of failures: the sins of omission and the sins of commission. Year after year, EPA and the Washington Department of Ecology give us stunning examples of the failure to take actions to protect and clean up Puget Sound. But today I’m writing about Ecology’s proposal to flat out break the law through taking an action.
The action is Ecology’s proposal to issue a nutrient general ...
Puget Sound Nutrient Pollution: Chapter 4
by Nina Bell • March 14, 2020 •
OK, in chapters 2 and 3 of the saga about the failure to clean up Puget Sound, we saw that the Washington Department of Ecology doesn’t want to carry out the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act. Well, what about enforcing a state law called “AKART”? That’s a 75-year old law established by the Washington Legislature to keep pollution out of the environment regardless of whether it’s already caused a problem for human health, fish, or ...
Actual Leadership
by Nina Bell • March 7, 2020 •
A kindly Washington reader writes: “What would it take to get some actual leadership on these issues instead of press releases and endless studies?”
I am momentarily struck incapable of thinking or writing. Then the moments drag into hours. This really is the big question.
OK, well, first of all, it’s worse than agencies just issuing press releases and endless studies. And let’s note that studies at least have the merit of providing us with fodder ...
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