How The Bastards Killed Our Coast (EPA)

We have discussed at some length on The Hayride the fact that Environmental Protection Agency rules on maritime water discharge forbid the release of anything containing more than 15 parts per million of oil.

On Monday, in fact, as we discussed the top seven examples of federal idiocy in the oil spill response, the application of this EPA regulation – designed to prevent oil from being added to water, rather than efforts to remove it – to the Gulf spill response was the worst of those examples.

As it happens, the best way to handle an oil spill is a process called “decanting,” which describes what oil skimmers do. Decanting involves sucking in oily water, separating the water from the oil as best as possible, and then discharging the water. Decanting, as one might imagine, is not a perfect process; if an oil skimmer takes in an oily water mix containing 15 percent oil and discharges one-half or one percent oil, though, that is certainly progress. But decanting, under EPA rules, is illegal.

This is not, as it turns out, an issue which has escaped the notice of the federal government. In a report by the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Oversight and Government Reform entitled “How the White House Public Relations Campaign on the Oil Spill is Harming the Actual Clean-up” released today, an interesting bit of information was uncovered.

Last year, the U.S. Coast Guard released its One Gulf Plan, which deals, among other things, with oil spills. Section 3340.2 of the One Gulf Plan is entitled “Decanting Policy,” and it reads as follows:

Decanting is a vital part of the recovery process. The inability to decant water from recovered oil/water mixtures and return the excess water into the recovery area significantly reduces the volume of available temporary storage capacity; thus, reducing the effectiveness of the on-water skimming and recovery operations. The inability to return the excess water containing some amount of oil will delay recovery operations and possibly lead to a complete cessation of recovery operations until additional temporary storage can be arranged.

It is essential that the return of oil and oily water associated with the mechanical recovery process be clearly authorized so that responders are not placed at legal risk when carrying out recovery operations.

Although no pre-approval for decanting exists within the One Gulf Plan area, decanting will be considered on a case-by-case basis by Unified Command.

In considering whether to permit decanting, criteria to be addressed will, at a minimum, include: 1. Availability of additional storage; 2. Resources at risk; 3. Toxicity of proposed discharge; and 4. Other incident specific considerations.

It appears that no permits for decanting were given until very recently, if at all. The Jones Act has been blamed for the inability of foreign skimmers to assist in the spill response, but it is the EPA restriction which is the real culprit. It’s the reason why the skimmers currently working the spill area are working on – as the Coast Guard’s One Gulf Plan warned one year ago – significantly reduced volume of available temporary storage capacity. It is why the current fleet of oil skimmers are operating at a 10-15 percent efficiency level at maximum, and why the entire skimming operation to date has removed just 70,000 barrels of oil, as opposed to skimmers like the “A-Whale” which is capable of decanting over 500,000 barrels per day.

Why has the oil come ashore from Vermilion Bay to Destin? Look no further than the refusal to permit decanting by oil skimmers under EPA regulations. This is why an admittedly major oil spill has become a major ecological and economic disaster with generational implications.

Many of us here have been beating on the EPA drum for over a month.

The "decanting" rules were presumably devised to help reduce the damage of an oil spill but they have been written and structured so the rules PREVENT mitigation of the damage.

Someone wrote these rules. They were published in the Federal Register. The "individual most responsible" had his name published with them went they were sent out for "notice and comment".

Seems to me some friend in the government could readily access the Federal Register to find out who that person is. I am sure they can be contacted on the matter.

In the meantime the original regulations promulgated by EPA over 3 decades ago had an "exclusion" clause that allowed discharges that were normally involved in the operation of an oceangoing vessel ~ for example, water released from an oil decanting operation would be something normal with an oil decanting vessel!

It was excluded from the permitting process up until the end of "W"s second term, then it was DESTROYED BY A FEDERAL COURT ON BEHALF OF NARROW ANTI DUMPING INTERESTS IN CALIFORNIA.

Here's the testimony of Mr. Hanlon

"TESTIMONY OF James A. Hanlon Director Office of Wastewater Management U.S. ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY BEFORE THE WATER RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE HOUSE TRANSPORTATION AND INFRASTRUCTURE COMMITTEE June 12, 2008

Introduction

Good morning Chairwoman Johnson and Members of the Subcommittee. I am James A. Hanlon, the Director of the Office of Wastewater Management in the Office of Water at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Thank you for the opportunity to discuss discharges that are incidental to the normal operation of vessels and the Clean Water Act’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination system (NPDES) program.

My testimony will provide updates on our current NPDES permitting activities with respect to commercial vessel discharges. I will begin by first providing a brief overview of EPA’s long-standing NPDES exclusion for discharges that are incidental to the normal operation of vessels and the litigation that challenges the validity of that exclusion.

NPDES Permit Exclusion and Related Litigation

Less than one year after the CWA was enacted, EPA promulgated a regulation excluding discharges incidental to the normal operation of vessels from the NPDES permitting program. First promulgated on May 22, 1973, that regulatory exclusion has undergone only minor changes over the past 35 years, and is currently codified at 40 C.F.R. 122.3(a) as follows:

“The following discharges do not require NPDES permits:

(a) Any discharge of sewage from vessels, effluent from properly functioning marine engines, laundry, shower, and galley sink wastes, or any other discharge incidental to the normal operation of a vessel. This exclusion does not apply to rubbish, trash, garbage, or other such materials discharged overboard; nor to other discharges when the vessel is operating in a capacity other than as a means of transportation such as when used as an energy or mining facility, a storage facility or a seafood processing facility, or when secured to a storage facility or a seafood processing facility, or when secured to the bed of the ocean, contiguous zone or waters of the United States for the purpose of mineral or oil exploration or development.”

In January 1999, a number of interested parties submitted a rulemaking petition to EPA expressing concern over discharges of ships’ ballast water containing invasive species and other matter and requested that EPA repeal the exclusion.

Following EPA’s denial of the petition, in December 2003, several of the groups filed a lawsuit in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California seeking revocation of the exclusion (Northwest Environmental Advocates et al. v. EPA, No. C 03-05760 SI). Despite our arguments defending the validity of the exclusion and requesting that any relief be limited to ballast water alone, in September 2006, the Court issued an order vacating the regulatory exclusion as of September 30, 2008.

Because that order was not limited to just ballast water discharges, it potentially implicates a wide variety of other discharges incidental to the normal operations of vessels, not only for the thousands of larger ocean- going ships with ballast tanks, but also, commercial vessels, barges, recreational vessels, and any other vessels (other than vessels of the Armed Forces) with discharges incidental to their normal operations into waters of the United States.

Section 301(a) of the CWA generally prohibits the “discharge of a pollutant” without an NPDES permit. If the District Court’s order remains unchanged, the regulatory exclusion allowing for the discharge of pollutants incidental to the normal operation of a vessel without an NPDES permit will be vacated by the Court on September 30, 2008. This means that, as of that date, the regulatory exclusion will no longer exempt such discharges from the prohibition in CWA section 301(a).

The CWA authorizes civil and criminal penalties for violations of the prohibition against the discharge of a pollutant without a permit, and also allows for citizen suits against violators."

For all practical purposes the Gulf of Mexico is being sacrificed by a District Court in California!

I didn't catch the name of the judge but he or she can be identified and dealt with!

Maybe the "W" EPA prepared an appeal to the 9th Circus. What happened to it? Did the Obamistas decide to just let it go and buy into the new rule as environmentally sound?

Now Obama has folks in the Justice Department with expertise in environmental law but who have been advocating on behalf of some of the litigants in this case ~ and over at EPA, the general counsel there is undoubtedly filled to the brim now with MANAGERS who worked for the environmental activists who brought the suit.

I think there's enough in this to BRING DOWN THE ENTIRE OBAMA REGIME.

They are hemmed in by their own regulations, their own interpretations of those regulations, and their very own lawsuits from their days outside the government.

There's probably not an environmental legal specialist in the government whose hands are clean enough to even pursue an appeal of this monstrous piece of law, and the Democrats are incapable of passing enabling legislation to let the clean up proceed.

Can you imagine that stumbling idiot Eric Holder dealing with this one?

And Obama, I told you he was into this for the parties ~ nobody told him he'd ever have to do any real work.

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