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Friday, December 19, 2008

Environment - Still more on: IDEM dissolves office of enforcement

Updating earlier ILB entries from Dec. 14th and Dec. 16th, today the Fort Wayne Journal Gazette has this editorial. Some quotes:

Enforcing environmental regulations and then punishing violators is the raison d’être for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. But for some indefensible reason, IDEM officials have made two decisions recently that call into question their willingness to fulfill their responsibility to protect Hoosiers and the environment.

IDEM is closing its office of environmental protection.

Equally questionable is IDEM’s move to adopt new policies that narrow the definition of environmental harm and investigate only after the environmental damage has been done. State officials charged with protecting people from environmental law violations will instead be asking Hoosiers to prove they were harmed by such things as chemical spills, air pollution that exceeds permitted standards or animal feces flowing freely into state waterways.

Proving environmental harm can be a difficult and lengthy process. It can take decades for a cancer cluster to become evident. Citizens should not have to wait until a whole neighborhood gets sick before state regulators decide to enforce state laws. * * *

The wrongheaded moves are yet more black marks against Gov. Mitch Daniels’ already spotty record for supporting environmental protection. The environmental management department is quickly becoming a joke. But the further dismantlement of government oversight over polluters is no laughing matter.

More News. The ILB has learned that while IDEM is moving Office of Enforcement employees into the air, water and land departments, it is at the same time moving environmental rules development out of the individual departments and into the Commissioner's office.

More on IDEM Enforcement. In earlier entries this week, I noted that I had never seen the 2003 policy document that IDEM is proposing to replace.

The currently "pending" version [08-006-NPD -- Pending] states that it supersedes the policy titled "Classification of Environmental Violations and Criteria For Referral of Such Violations to the Office of Enforcement dated February 5, 2003."

I suggested that until the pending nonrule policy document (NPD) was finalized pursuant to the requirements of IC 13-14-1-11.5 , the 2003 document governing environmental enforcement presumably was still in effect.

But I could not locate it on the IDEM website and wrote: "I asked folks in IDEM external affairs office for a copy of the 2003 policy first thing Monday morning (Dec. 15th). They are attempting to locate it." Yesterday, Thursday Dec. 18th, I inquired as to their progress in locating the document and in response received an official document essentially acknowledging that they had received my request, stating part:

A search for the information will be will conducted and once the search has been completed you will be contacted informing you of whether any information was found. If the information is located then the number of pages; cost to copy, request for copying form and information for payment of copying will be sent to you or you will receive a telephone call from one of the Central File Room staff members.
This, for a document that sets out the State's current environmental enforcement policy? The whole purpose of the nonrule policy document law, IC 13-14-1-11.5, is to prevent IDEM from implementing "nonrule" policies that are not available to the public. As a result, the NPDs are all available here on the IDEM website, except it seems for 2003 document at issue.

Fortunately, the ILB has obtained a copy of the 16-page document, "Classification of Environmental Violations and Criteria For Referral of Such Violations to the Office of Enforcement dated February 5, 2003," from another source, and has posted it here.

To understand the IDEM changes, the two documents must be reviewed side-by-side. To do that, both versions must be available.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on December 19, 2008 10:53 AM
Posted to Environment