EMISSIONS OMISSIONS
EPA suspended methane monitoring during pandemic in troubling move.
Thousands of oil and gas operations, government facilities and other sites won permission to stop monitoring for hazardous emissions or otherwise bypass rules intended to protect health and the environment because of the coronavirus outbreak, the Associated Press has found.
The result: approval for less environmental monitoring at some Texas refineries and at an army depot dismantling warheads armed with nerve gas in Kentucky, manure piling up and the mass disposal of livestock carcasses at farms in Iowa and Minnesota, and other risks to communities as governments eased enforcement over smokestacks, medical waste shipments, sewage plants, oil fields and chemical plants.
The Trump administration paved the way for the reduced monitoring on March 26 after being pressured by the oil and gas industry, which said lockdowns and social distancing during the pandemic made it difficult to comply with antipollution rules. States are responsible for much of the oversight of federal environmental laws, and many followed with leniency policies of their own.
AP’s two-month review found that waivers were granted in more than 3,000 cases, representing the overwhelming majority of requests citing the outbreak. Hundreds of requests were approved for oil and gas companies. AP reached out to all 50 states citing open-records laws; all but one, New York, provided at least partial information, reporting the data in differing ways and with varying level of detail.
Almost all those requesting waivers told regulators they did so to minimize risks for workers and the public during a pandemic — although a handful reported they were trying to cut costs.
The Environmental Protection Agency says the waivers do not authorize recipients to exceed pollution limits. Regulators will continue pursuing those who “did not act responsibly under the circumstances,” EPA spokesman James Hewitt said in an email.
But environmentalists and public health experts say it may be impossible to fully determine the impact of the country’s first extended, national environmental enforcement clemency because monitoring oversight was relaxed. “The harm from this policy is already done,” said Cynthia Giles, EPA’s former assistant administrator under the Obama administration.
EPA says it will end the clemency this month.
The same day EPA announced its new policy, Marathon Petroleum asked Indiana for relief from leak detection, groundwater sampling, spill prevention, emissions testing and hazardous waste responsibilities.
“We believe that by taking these measures, we can do our part to slow the spread of the COVID-19 virus,” Tim Peterkoski, Marathon’s environmental auditing head, told Indiana.
Marathon also won permission to skip environmental tests at many of its refineries and gas stations in California, Michigan, North Dakota and Texas.
Spokesman Jamal Kheiry said Marathon continued emissions monitoring and other activities and usually met deadlines.
In New Mexico, Penny Aucoin, a resident of the oil-rich Permian Basin, said that since the pandemic began she and her husband have asked regulators to investigate what they feared could be dangerous leaks from one of the many oil and gas companies operating near their mobile home.
“There’s nobody watching,” Aucoin said.
Maddy Hayden, New Mexico’s environmental spokesperson, said her agency stopped inperson investigations of citizen air-quality complaints from March to May to protect staff and the public but would respond to emergencies.
Cutting compliance
Almost every state reported fielding requests from industries and local governments to cut back on compliance, often for routine paperwork but also for monitoring, repairs and other measures to control hazardous soot, toxic compounds, heavy metals and disease-bearing contaminants.
Manufacturer Saint-Gobain, whose New Hampshire plant has been linked by the state to water contaminated with PFAS chemicals, asked to delay smokestack upgrades that would address the problem. The company cited problems the company’s suppliers and contractors have faced because of the coronavirus.
The AP’s findings run counter to statements in late June by EPA official Susan Bodine, who told lawmakers the pandemic was not causing “a significant impact on routine compliance, monitoring and reporting” and that industry wasn’t widely seeking relief from monitoring.
Separately, EPA enforcement data shows 40 percent fewer tests of smokestacks were conducted in March and April compared with the same period last year, according to the Environmental Data and Governance Initiative, a network of academics and nonprofits.
Hewitt, the EPA spokesman, pointed to the economic downturn and said closed facilities couldn’t test smokestacks.
Oil and gas companies received a green light to skip dozens of scheduled tests and inspections critical for ensuring safe operations, such as temporarily halting or delaying tests for leaks or checking on tank seals, flare stacks, emissions monitoring systems or engine performance, which could raise the risk of explosions.
Taken together, the missed inspections for leaks could add hundreds or thousands of tons of greenhouse gases to the atmosphere, and could be making refinery work more dangerous, said Coyne Gibson, a former oil and gas engineer and a member of the Big Bend Conservation Alliance in Texas.