Clean water protections from construction site sediment have been drastically reduced since 2010. This week inCIB.

Administrative Watch: Sedimentation Enforcement Slashed

State enforcement of controls on sediment pollution of waterways in North Carolina has dropped dramatically since 2010,according to an analysis by reporters from WFAE radio in Charlotte.

The analysis shows that the number of inspections of construction sites by state inspectors has dropped markedly, and that the frequency with which discovered non-compliance with pollution control rules is cited for violations has been cut as well. Enforcement agency staff acknowledge that their inspection staff has been slashed by the state legislature, from 65 to 40, with more cuts coming.

Sediment – or in lay terms, mud – from construction sites and other activities is one of the most pervasive and problematic causes of water degradation. It fills in reservoirs, buries stream bottom habitat for fish and their food sources, and fouls drinking water sources. Policing the sediment runoff from construction activities in our state is a shared local/state responsibility, critical to the task of protecting water quality.

North Carolina has been a regional leader in that effort since passage of the Sedimentation Control Act of 1973. However, putting adequate resources into the job has always been a challenge. The WFAE study quantifies just how worse the situation has become in the past four years.

The chief of the state Land Quality Section, which is responsible for sedimentation inspections, suggests that developers are doing a better job of self-policing. Soil science professionals and environmental advocates, however, say that the state is just falling down on the job. They point to a combination of inadequate staff resources, and the determination by Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) leadership to go easy on polluters.

From fiscal year 2010 to fiscal year 2014, state regulatory citations of polluters for sedimentation violations dropped from 560 to 170, and enforcement actions fell from 69 to 7. Even allowing for the impact of fewer inspectors and inspections, the rate of citations issued per inspection was cut in half.

Upper Neuse Riverkeeper Matt Starr told WFAE, “I believe it’s a systemic problem within that department. If you look at the new mission statement, the economy and being a customer-friendly entity come first, and the customers are the polluters.”

Even the state Sedimentation Control Commission, the body of appointed citizens charged with helping to oversee the effectiveness of the professional staff’s program, has twice (2012 and again this year) asked the legislature to increase enforcement staff resources. This year, that Commission’s resolution said bluntly that the agency “does not have adequate staff to effectively monitor compliance” with state law.

Thus far, the only responses from the DENR leadership level and the legislature have been silence and denial.

Executive Watch: Secretary Shuffle

NC DENR Secretary John Skvarla is moving over to lead the Commerce Department under the department chiefs shuffle announced last week by the McCrory Administration. Current Commerce Secretary Sharon Decker is leaving at the end of this month to take a new position back in the private sector.

McCrory did not announce his new choice for DENR Secretary immediately. Rumored possible picks include current DENR Deputy Secretary Don van der Vaart, Mining and Energy Commission member George Howard, DENR Assistant Secretary Mitch Gillespie, and DENR Ecosystem Enhancement Program Director Michael Ellison.

At DENR, Skvarla boasted that he had turned “North Carolina’s No. 1 obstacle of resistance into a customer-friendly juggernaut.” (Raleigh News & Observer letter, December 2013.) “Customer-friendly” was Skvarla’s favorite catch-phrase in describing his approach at DENR toward businesses, in particular those which his department is charged with regulating through permitting of air and water pollutant discharges.

The environmental community saw Skvarla’s “customer-friendly” philosophy as dragging down to ineffectiveness the agency’s legal responsibility as a defender of clean air and water and public health. Appalachian Voices’ Amy Adams commented last week that Skvarla “ushered in an era of regressive environmental policies and procedures that placed industry over the needs of the environment and people. It is our sincere hope that his departure from DENR will allow the return of accountability and reason to the agency.” (Associated Press, 12/3/14.)

We wish Secretary Skvarla well in his new position as head of Commerce. Business interests deserve an enthusiastic representative inside any administration. Skvarla’s perspectives make him a natural for that role, and the Commerce Department is a reasonable perch from which to sing his song.

For Governor Pat McCrory, however, we have a different word of advice: it’s time to pick someone quite different to head your Department of Environment and Natural Resources.

Someone who understands that DENR’s most important “customers” are North Carolina’s citizens whose health and natural resources need protection from unrestrained pollution.

Coast Watch: Reconsidering Terminal Stupidity

For decades, North Carolina coastal environmental policies have blessedly kept “beach hardening” on our barrier islands to a minimum. Such “hard structures” on the beach include seawalls and rock groins (including so-called “terminal groins”) that are intended to protect other human-built structures from waves and shifts in coastline. Such structures invariably create environmental damage by either blocking the natural retreat of a shoreline, replacing sandy beach with a rocky wall, or even accelerating erosion elsewhere.

In 2010, the NC General Assembly unwisely chipped away at the sound policy of barring new oceanfront seawalls and groins, authorizing up to four “terminal groins” – massive seawalls built perpendicular to the beach well out into the surf, theoretically intended to halt the migration of a nearby inlet by capturing sand. One coastal community pursuing such a groin has been privately-owned Figure Eight Island.

The Figure Eight groin proposal was the subject of a draft Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) intended to evaluate the impacts of the project. However, the groin’s proponents substantially changed their proposal after the public review period on the EIS closed. Opponents of the proposed groin have sought revision of the draft EIS and a new review opportunity in light of the changed proposal, as well as new evidence on changes to Figure Eight Island’s actual shoreline.

Last week, the US Army Corps of Engineers (the chief federal permitting agency for such projects) announced that it would take a new look at the project and provide a new opportunity for public review. For more details and background, see the N.C. Coastal Federation’s article here.

That’s a positive development for our coast. The more carefully one reviews “terminal groins” proposed for sandy barrier islands like those on North Carolina’s ocean coast, the more they look like terminal stupidity for our natural beaches.

That’s our report for this week.