Make Polluters Clean Up Their Acts

Sat., Oct. 21, 1995

By D.F. Oliveria daveo@spokesman.com (509) 319-0354

Environmental agencies should provide second and sometimes third chances to commerce and industry trying to comply with their rules. But they shouldn’t give fourth, fifth and sixth chances to callous polluters - corporate or individual.

Violators, like pampered children, ignore environmental officials when threats are not backed up with strong enforcement.

Schweitzer Mountain Resort, for example, has winked at warnings and compliance deadlines for the past four years as expansion work and rainstorms funnel muddy water into Schweitzer Creek and ultimately Lake Pend Oreille.

A neighbor whose water system was clogged by silt from the Schweitzer runoff justifiably criticized the Idaho Division of Environmental Quality: “I’m astounded why people tolerate this. These agencies will go shut down a logger and fine him, but they won’t do it to Schweitzer.”

The DEQ, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other agencies should be flexible in handling environmental problems. But they also need to carry a big stick. logger, corporate official or government bureaucrat continues to pollute after repeated warnings, he should be whacked with fines and shut down.

The corps, for example, finally revoked permits given to the Idaho Department of Transportation - after construction on a 10-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 95, north of Sandpoint, poured tons of sediment into Sand Creek and destroyed a stream bed and five acres of wetlands. DEQ officials sought an erosion control plan before work started and hounded the state Transportation Department about water quality violations afterward.

But the DEQ was ignored. Sound familiar?

Earlier this year, Idaho Department of Lands officials showed how to handle polluters who thumb their nose at environmental law. In February, they filed criminal charges against Hayden Lake logger Jim Kozak, who allegedly trashed a small stream and then didn’t heed EIGHT different requests to fix the problem.

Certainly, the damage Kozak caused wasn’t as great as that being done by the Schweitzer project. Or by the state Transportation Department on U.S. 95. In fact, you’d expect a government agency, or a resort that lures visitors by offering unparalleled vistas, to be extra careful with the air, land and water around them.

And maybe they would be, too, if environmental officials had a little bite to go with their bark.

, DataTimes The following fields overflowed: CREDIT = D.F. Oliveria/For the editorial board

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