March 16, 2010--DHEC:  The Department of Hiding Environmental Crimes

A Blog from Susan Corbett, Chair, South Carolina Sierra Club

I have some wonderful friends who work at DHEC.  I think lots of caring concerned people go to work there, hoping they can have a profound influence on improving the quality of our environment and the health of our citizens.  Unfortunately, I think the agency is conflicted in many ways, ways that ultimately lead it to doing the opposite of what most folks intend.

This past week, I attended and spoke at a DHEC hearing regarding its plans to get rid of limits on arsenic being released by SCE&G into the Wateree River, near Eastover in lowerRichland County.  The hearing attracted several hundred angry citizens and some elected officials, all rightfully concerned that DHEC, rather than further limiting arsenic in the water, was opening the floodgates to more.

In an astonishing demonstration of unconcern, the agency simply said that dilution IS the solution to pollution, and once the arsenic reached the river, it would be so diluted so as not to be a health risk to anyone.

How the agency continues to compartmentalize its thinking is of great concern to many.  The arsenic in question is coming from a coal ash dump, where toxins from coal ash have been collected in an unlined, holding pond near the banks of the Wateree.  There is a pipe from that pond that leads into the river where a certain amount of waste is discharged.  While the amounts of arsenic coming from that pipe into the river may, indeed, be relatively small, what should be taken into account is the many seeps leaking into the river from this pond.  Rep. James Smith showed a video of these very obvious, very large seepages, coming from the toxic pond, onto the banks of the Wateree, and going directly into the river.

Why DHEC has not forced the utility to stop these leaks is hard to fathom.  Technology does exist to filter arsenic, a metal, from discharges.  Any number of techniques could be employed.  Each of these techniques would cost SCE&G money, of course, but they would drastically reduce the amount of arsenic, a very toxic, cancer causing substance, that is being dumped into our river.

What do we have to do to get DHEC to truly live up to its name, the Department of Health and Environmental Control?  We live in one of the most unhealthy states, and DHEC certainly isn’t controlling much in our environment.  I'm afraid I have been forced to find other names for this dysfunctional agency: The Dept. of Hindering Environmental Cleanup, or the Dept. of Helping Environmental Criminals.  How about the Dept. of Harming Everyone's Children? After hearing the terrible stories about children getting sick from being in the river near the Alpine sewage releases, I was so disgusted.

I want this agency to change its mission and its outlook.  Dilution is NOT the solution to pollution.  Removing pollution is the solution.  At what point does dilution become saturation? If we leave it to DHEC, we may never know.

Susan