In Rebuttal: Bogus Pollution Report
PennEnvironment paints a false picture of water quality
Pittsburgh Post Gazette
5 April 2012
By Mike Krancer
With its recent so-called "report" called "Wasting Our Waterways,"
PennEnvironment once again proves that it is neither principled,
credible nor a legitimate partner for dialogue on the environment.
The Post-Gazette carried a story detailing this report that
claimed widespread pollution throughout the nation's rivers,
citing the Ohio and Allegheny as examples ("Region's Rivers Are
Some of Nation's Most Polluted," March 23). The Post-Gazette
carried an online link to the report and then ran an uncritical
editorial ("Toxic Status Quo: There's a Long Way to Go in Cleaning
Up Waterways," March 26).
But the report is a fraud, starting with the cover.
The study's cover showed a drainage pipe releasing filthy water
into a river. We immediately investigated the location of this
photograph since, if accurate, it would be evidence of a serious
environmental violation. In fact, the photograph is a purchased
stock image of a discharge pipe flowing wastewater into a water
purification station in South Africa.
PennEnvironment has withdrawn the photo, but this is the second
time it has posted a fraudulent photograph as part of its
propaganda efforts.
During last September's flooding, the organization posted a photo
of a purported flooded drilling rig, suggesting it was taken
during the flooding somewhere in the Marcellus Shale drilling area
of Pennsylvania. But it turned out to have been a photo of a
water-based drilling rig in Pakistan.
Pennsylvania has 67 counties -- neither Pakistan nor South Africa
is among them. PennEnvironment's track record is so bad it has
embarrassed other environmental groups and succeeded in
marginalizing itself even within the community of non-government
organizations.
Facts ought to matter, but they never have to Penn Environment or
its nationwide affiliates. The false cover photo is not all.
What came after the fraudulent cover was a litany of statistics on
the raw tonnage of chemicals released into rivers. These numbers
come from the Environmental Protection Agency's Toxic Release
Inventory for 2010, which is prepared as required by federal law.
The report makes these discharges seem nefarious, but they are
legal and permitted discharges under both federal and state law.
Also, the report downplays the fact that our environmental
regulations have improved the quality of our waterways
dramatically over the past few generations -- work that the
Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection is continuing.
The EPA's own fact sheet on the Toxic Release Inventory shows a
decline in levels of discharges since 2002.
PennEnvironment fails to even mention calculations based on the
Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators program. The RSEI is a
computer-based screening tool developed by the EPA that uses TSI
data to analyze the risk of discharges causing or worsening
chronic health problems. The national RSEI score dropped by 43
percent from 2001 to 2007, the most recent data available.
Closer to home, as most Western Pennsylvanians know, the
Bassmaster Classic fishing tournament was hosted just a few years
ago at The Point in Downtown Pittsburgh where the Allegheny and
Monongahela rivers form the Ohio. The Western Pennsylvania
Conservancy has noted that much of the Allegheny River exhibits
good water quality and that for many years public and private
efforts have been improving it. The Ohio River Valley Water
Sanitation Commission, which really does know something about the
Ohio River, reports that since 1948 it and its member states have
cooperated to improve water quality in the Ohio River Basin.
It is time that news outlets like the Post-Gazette do some
investigative homework before uncritically publishing details from
a group intent on stoking public hysteria with fiction.
Mike Krancer is secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection (www.dep.state.pa.us).