Air pollution. The Evansville Courier&Press has an editorial today on the Mount Carmel (Illinois) / (Indiana) Gibson Generating Plant situation covered here in a number of earlier entries. Titled "The Issue: Mount Carmel case demonstrates flaw in sanctioning individual counties. Our View: Pollution does not recognize political boundaries," the editorial begins:
Nowhere is the flaw in the Environmental Protection Agency's system of sanctioning individual counties for clean-air violations better demonstrated than in the case of Cinergy/PSI and Mount Carmel, Ill. What this situation exposes is the obvious: that pollution does not respect political boundaries. * * *Superfund Site Management. The Lafayette Courier and Journal has an intereesting story today on the continuing costs of a Superfund landfill that begins:Earlier this summer, the Gibson Power Plant, owned by Cinergy Power Generation Services and PSI Energy, began emitting bluish clouds of sulfuric-acid gas that drifted across the Wabash River and into Mount Carmel. As a result, citizens in the Illinois town suffered burning eyes, sore throats and breathing problems.
This occurred because the company had installed a device to reduce nitrogen oxide emissions, but instead, the plant began producing sulfur trioxide. This turned into an acidic mist when it mixed with moisture in the atmosphere, and drifted from Indiana to Illinois. * * *
As we said, what should not be lost here is how this situation demonstrates that pollution honors no boundaries. County and state lines mean nothing to pollution and can do nothing to stop its movement. Yet, were EPA procedures applied to this situation, as they are to ozone regulation, the Illinois city of Mount Carmel might be penalized.
The board in charge of the Superfund site at the former Tippecanoe County Sanitary Landfill rehired for another two years the environmental company that maintains and operates the site.Wetlands. The Washington Post has a story today that begins:Keramida Environmental, Inc. has overseen remedying the polluted, 79-acre landfill site, at 2801 N. Ninth St., since the Tippecanoe County Local Environmental Response Financing Board, or TERF, was created in 1998. Since 2002, Keramida has been in charge of channeling and burning methane gas and collecting ad disposing of contaminated rainwater known as leachate.
"You have done a fine job," said TERF board member Dennis Probasco, who was impressed with how well the collection operation worked even during intense rainfalls this summer. By design, the site now includes a wetlands area that is clean enough to be home to an increasing number of beavers, birds, rabbits and deer.
The administration has allowed developers to drain thousands of acres of wetlands under a policy adopted last year, according to a report issued yesterday by four environmental groups.However, I have been unable to locate the report cited. Posted by Marcia Oddi at August 12, 2004 10:52 AMThe study, based on Freedom of Information Act requests, represents the first accounting of how the administration's interpretation of a 2001 Supreme Court decision affected isolated wetlands in states from New Mexico to Delaware. The court ruled that isolated wetlands that do not cross state boundaries and are not navigable do not enjoy the same federal protections as other wetlands just because they serve migratory birds.