Audit: Tennessee lax on polluters

[Thom Little]

Tennessee environmental regulators are slow to start investigations and even slower to end them, according to a performance audit of the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation.

The state Comptroller's Office review of the agency released this week said TDEC divisions "did not always initiate enforcement action against violators in a timely manner."

And once the cases reached TDEC's Office of General Counsel, the investigations can languish for years -- far exceeding Environmental Protection Agency guidelines.

"Timely and consistent enforcement can help prevent and reduce pollution and act as an incentive for violators to comply with Environmental Protection Agency or state requirements," the auditors wrote.


http://www.commercialappeal.com/mca/midsouth_news/article/0,1426,MCA_1497_4285907,00.html

[SharonAnn]

1. Thanks for posting this. I wouldn't have seen it otherwise.

I'm in East Tennessee and we're working on clean Air issues. TDEC is a challenge to work with but they sure don't "dis" us any longer since we took on Tate & Lyle (A. E. Staley) this year and got a settlement out of our legal action. The company is now going to put in about $15 million worth of pollution controls in their current and expanded plant. We got the settlement written with the requirements and monitoring that we wanted.

TDEC used to talk down to us, they sure don't do that any more! Guess they hadn't dealt with and educated group of reitred people who had time to research things and were willing to put up money for legal action. And, it sure helped that we had a retired corporate attorney in our group who understood what legal options we might have and how we might best find an attorney to pursue them.