MOSCOW, August 5 (RIA Novosti) - The US Army Corps of Engineers is to make public the total amount of pollutants it discharges into the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington, where it has a total of eight dams, Portland’s KATU.com reports.
The decision comes after a US District Court in Portland ruled Monday that the corps should report to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the author of the lawsuit, the amount of toxic waste it intends to send through its dams. The Army Corps will also have to request official permission from the EPA for this purpose, in addition to obtaining approval from the federal government.
As a defense, according to KATU.com, the Army Corps maintained that it was under no circumstances accountable to the EPA. The latter, however, said that under the Clean Water Act the Army Corps “isn’t just a polluter, but a regulator of pollution,” according to the EPA statute.
The corps did not admit it was at fault but agreed to pay a fine of $143,000, while all related cases were dismissed, the Portland news agency reported.
The judgment enables the EPA to oversee the activities of the Army Corps more broadly. Formerly, the EPA was able to supervise the corps, but unable to force it to apply for pollution permits.
The court ruling also obliges the corps to inspect its dam machinery to fix any potential malfunctions.
Melissa Powers, an environmental law professor at Lewis & Clark Law School in Portland, Oregon, was quoted by CBS News as saying, “Under the letter of the law, they [the Army Corps] have been engaged in unpermitted discharge for years. They should have long ago said, 'This is how much we're discharging. Here are the environmental impacts.'”
Powers also stated that the permits the EPA can issue will likely limit the overall amount of waste the corps discharges. The law professor also opined that environmentalists should closely monitor the permits issued and waste spilled.
The EPA filed the lawsuit in 2013 after it found life-threatening substances, specifically polychlorinated biphenyl, in fish in the Columbia River in 2009.
There has been speculation that the move could precipitate a national campaign compelling all dams functioning without permission to secure pollution permits, which would make it difficult for dam owners across the country to reject expert evidence that permits are in the interests of the public at large.
