Too Few Protecting Our Natural Areas

Last April, an audit of the Illinois Department of Natural Resources found a lot of financial and management problems. Last week, a legislative panel said the troubles can can be linked back to the lack of resources available due to underfunding.

As reported in the Pantagraph, the Legislative Audit Commission, "said Blagojevich-imposed job cuts have 'gutted' the agency, leaving it unable to function properly," and noted that IDNR has lost more than 400 employees since Blagojevich took office.

This seems like a good point to link to the Partners for Parks and Wildlife website that outlines why Illinois needs an increase in dedicated funding for open space and how you can help make that case to the state government.

Clean Water

It's been 35 years since the federal Clean Water Act was passed, and most of us probably assume that, while there is a lot more that needs to be done to keep our waters healthy, at least we've established some protections. Two news stories today show that faith is misguided.

IEC member Environment Illinois has released a report, Troubled Waters, that documents how nearly half of industrial and municipal facilities across Illinois discharged more pollution into our waterways than their Clean Water Act permits allow in 2005. "Will County ranked eighth in the nation for most facilities exceeding their limits, with 15 facilities in 1995," reported the Chicago Sun Times. "But the list was led by two Romeoville sewage plants, which missed their permitted marks every month in 2005, discharging excessive nitrogen, ammonia and suspended solids into the Des Plaines River."

Next door, The Indiana Department of Environmental Management, the same folks who tried to give a BP refinery permission to significantly increase discharges into Lake Michigan earlier this year until a public outcry scuttled the plans, isn't doing too well in Clean Water Act compliance either. The agency is "moving to scrap, relax or omit limits on toxic chemicals and heavy metals dumped into a Lake Michigan tributary by the sprawling U.S. Steel Corp. mill in Gary, according to environmental lawyers and former federal regulators who have reviewed a proposed water permit," according to the front-page story in the Chicago Tribune.

The new state rules may be in violation of Clean Water Act standards. And, oh, by the way, the plant, which is required to renew water permits every five years under the act, has been operating on an extended permit since 1994. It's one of 10 major polluters in Indiana to be operating on expired, extended permits, the Trib reports.

Update: The U.S. EPA has stepped up to the plate and said under the Clean Water Act, it won't allow a new permit for the Indiana mill until problems with the permit are fixed.