If Gov. Dannel P. Malloy wants to streamline government regulations, he might want to start with the paperwork.
At the state Department of Energy & Environmental Protection — the agency Malloy uses as an example of progressive regulatory reform — documents meant to warn the public of serious pollution show DEEP has been slow to act on significant environmental threats.
In mid-October, Malloy signed an executive order asking for the public’s help in identifying Connecticut regulations that are obsolete, burdensome, or unnecessary. In addition, he ordered all state agencies to apply a lean workflow to their regulatory processes, a philosophy that DEEP already implemented to improve permit processing 74 percent.
While the Department of Energy & Environmental Protection has been successful in shortening the inspection times for issues like underground storage tanks from six weeks to a few hours, the agency’s regularly published “List of Significant Environmental Hazards” shows a problem with DEEP’s follow-through on site-specific pollution.
DEEP has not resolved 69 incidents where pollution threatened groundwater, with some cases more than seven years old, according to the list published on DEEP’s website. That’s more than 10 percent of the 500-plus properties listed in the publication.
DEEP claims this isn’t a regulatory problem but a paperwork issue. Agency spokesman Dennis Schain said nearly all of the 69 cases have been addressed and DEEP just hasn’t had the time to update the files for the “List of Significant Environmental Hazards” publication.
“It is really a data-entry issue,” Schain said. “They just haven’t been able to keep pace.”
Even if the hazards have been taken care of, DEEP still is regularly publishing a list saying otherwise, indicating dozens of properties around Connecticut have major unsettled environmental issues.
“If I am living near a property that is on this list, I want to know that the significant environmental hazard has been dealt with,” said Lee Hoffman, attorney for Hartford law firm Pullman & Comley, who notified DEEP of the paperwork issue more than six months ago.
Hoffman said even though the list doesn’t garner much attention from the public, the fact that it isn’t updated with accurate information creates all types of issues ranging from unknown health risks to concerns during property transfers to general perceptions about Connecticut’s environment.
“The risks ought to be addressed, they need to be addressed quickly, and the public needs to know it has been addressed,” Hoffman said. “If (a property) has been fixed up, that’s great, but the list needs to be updated so the people in the surrounding area know they don’t have to adjust their lives because the environmental hazard.”
The lack of an updated list also creates issues for the properties and businesses where the environmental hazards took place, even though the problem may have been resolved for years. The lists include numerous incidents at gasoline stations and dry cleaners, where an underground tank may have leaked or a chemical spilled.
“It can interfere with your financing until the case is closed,” said Chris Herb, president of the Connecticut Energy Marketers Association, a trade group representing gasoline stations. “You don’t want to be on the list, because it … can impact your ability to get new financing or sell your property.”
The environmental hazards list is frustrating, too, because most underground tank leaks at gasoline stations are addressed immediately, Herb said. Those underground tanks contain the station’s most valued commodity, and the businesses don’t want to lose money by having their product seep into the environment.
Once a hazard has been identified, DEEP requires the property owner to monitor the site for years to make sure there is no threat to groundwater, even if the spill was addressed immediately and all contaminants removed.
“Ongoing monitoring is a big issue,” Herb said. “It seems like hundreds of thousands of dollars in expense can be spent on this ongoing monitoring.”
As part of Malloy’s regulatory overhaul, DEEP is looking to change its cleanup and monitoring requirements for environmental hazards in order to get contaminants removed quicker and to lower the burden on business and property owners, said Graham Stevens, DEEP office director of constituent affairs and land management.
Currently, unless there is an immediate threat to public health such as pollution near an aquifer, an environmental hazard doesn’t have to be cleaned up, just contained. Only when the land is sold does the state’s Property Transfer Program require the pollution be investigated and removed.
“We have been hearing feedback for many years that the Transfer Act is very complex,” Stevens said. “It can bog down the deal.”
The new system being proposed gives property owners more flexibility to work within the law and get the pollution removed as quickly as possible, Stevens said.
The standard being sought follows a Massachusetts law that gives two separate timetables for cleaning pollution: a quicker one for newer hazards and a more deliberate timetable for older hazards. Businesses and property owners who move fast might be able to avoid the long-term monitoring that the law now requires.
“We want to take people who take quick action out of the system as quickly as possible,” Stevens said.
The ongoing monitoring isn’t a small issue either. Berlin electric utility Connecticut Light & Power is on the “List of Significant Environmental Hazards” for an April 2012 spill from an underground storage tank at its East Hampton service center.
Even though the contamination was removed immediately, CL&P still must provide weekly data on the quality of the water in the area to the state Department of Public Health, along with more extensive quarterly reports.
Since the spill was cleaned, none of the testing has shown any threats to the public health or the environment, said CL&P spokesman Mitch Gross. The utility is even expanding its use of the East Hampton center, relocating employees from their offices in South Windsor, Willimantic, Lebanon, and Middletown.
“The issue was removed a long time ago,” Gross said.
DEEP already made some modifications to its regulatory process in June to give property owners more flexibility but started a more thorough risk assessment evaluation in November for what else needs to be updated, which will include changes to the law that only the state legislature can make.
DEEP expects to have recommendations in October for the legislature to take up in its 2015 session.
