Attorney General Letitia James is right when she states: “Every New Yorker deserves clean, safe water.”
But it takes more than an assertion to make clean water happen. Fighting the pollution that continues to threaten the water we drink and area waterways that support wildlife and recreation takes leadership and aggressive measures from the state. It doesn’t look like we’re getting enough of either from New York’s Department of Environmental Conservation.
“Every New Yorker deserves clean, safe water,” said Attorney General Letitia James. “This agreement is a major step forward in protecting the health of Western New York families and preserving the Niagara River for generations to come.”
At the very least, the DEC has been inconsistent in enforcing environmental regulations intended to protect Western New York’s already compromised rivers, streams and lakes. While the agency’s recent agreement with the Buffalo Sewer Authority is an important step forward in the long-running effort to keep sewage out of local waterways, its apparently lax oversight of companies that are contaminating those waterways in other ways is discouraging and worrying.
For months, Great Lakes Cheese has been discharging polluted wastewater into Ischua Creek far in excess of what its permits allow, according to data from the Environmental Protection Agency.
As reported in a series of stories by The News’ Mackenzie Shuman, thousands of dead fish were the grim result of wastewater discharges by Great Lakes Cheese into Ischua Creek, near Franklinville. It’s likely that thousands more smaller aquatic species met the same fate as the brown trout that make this creek a haven for local anglers. And a WGRZ report indicates that dead mammals, such as muskrat and beaver, have also been spotted.
Shuman also reported that, contrary to initial speculation, this wasn’t a one-time accident. It now seems that Great Lakes Cheese had been discharging excessive amounts of pollutants into the creek repeatedly, ever since the cheese plant opened in November.
By excessive, we mean 900,000 gallons a day of treated wastewater, that, despite being treated, contained pollutants such as chorine and phosphorus at levels that ranged as high as 600% to 700% of the amounts allowed under the DEC’s permit. There also appear to be violations in the parameters of biochemical oxygen demand, ammonia, nitrogen and total dissolved solids.
No wonder there was a devastating fish and wildlife die-off. The timeline and amounts appear in public data from the Environmental Protection Agency, but the DEC didn’t issue notices of violations of its wastewater discharge permit to Great Lakes Cheese until June and July. After the fish die-off was reported on Aug. 26, the agency began a more active investigation and Great Lakes Cheese voluntarily shut off its wastewater discharge.
Sadly, Great Lakes Cheese is not alone in treating a nearby creek as a handy dumping ground. In Friendship, Saputo Cheese has been repeatedly violating its permit limits on the wastewater it dumps into Van Campen Creek, which flows into the Genesee River. Here, the DEC did not take notice until the dumping of excessive contaminants had been occurring for more than a year. In Middleport, FMC Agricultural Products has been discharging excess levels of carbofuran, a highly toxic pesticide, into Jeddo Creek, a tributary of the Erie Canal. Thermo Fisher Scientific on Grand Island also has multiple violations.
These violations of the Clean Water Act vary in severity and not all of them cause significant damage, but, as Brian Smith, associate executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, stated, “We need to look comprehensively at all these impacts and how some of them, little by little, can add up to significant threats.”
That’s why these discharges need to be carefully monitored by the DEC, which is responsible for issuing wastewater permits and enforcing the Clean Water Act. Given the time gaps between documented violations and DEC action, it doesn’t look like that’s happening in anything approaching a speedy manner.
At one time, nobody paid attention to heedless dumping of chemicals, sewage and other contaminants into area waterways. That’s why Western New Yorkers have put up with fish that shouldn’t be eaten and beaches unsafe for swimming for too long. Organizations like Buffalo Niagara Waterkeeper and their partners have made heroic efforts with local waterways, but their work is being undermined by corporate heedlessness elsewhere.
We depend on the DEC to enforce the laws that are slowly making our water cleaner. This is not the time to go backward.
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