The SC Department of Health and Environmental Control has fallen down...way, way down...on the job. Lead in drinking water, radioactive leaks, mercury-saturated fish...these are just some of the issues that DHEC allowed to fester for years, despite knowing about them. The only thing that has forced DHEC to begin a turn-around has been exposure in the media. The State, SC's largest newspaper, has a long history of excellent investigative journalism.
Hold your nose...this is a nasty story. But agencies in Virginia easily could be doing similar things...which will only get worse, and more dangerous, if uranium mining becomes a reality. DHEC oversees the nuclear dumpsite in Barnwell, SC and keeps most of its information about the site secret.
State regulators have given polluters breaks, withheld information from the public and pushed development over the protection of natural resources. Has the agency that’s supposed to safeguard the environment and our health lost its way?
Imagine a state agency that helps developers build in fragile areas close to the ocean — at taxpayer expense.
Imagine an agency that oversees homes for the disabled in which at least three people have died from neglect in two years.
Imagine an agency posting one of the nation’s worst records for cleaning up leaks from underground gasoline tanks — in a state where more than a quarter of residents drink from wells.
Imagine an agency that regulates garbage landfills helping to turn the state into a trash mecca for the Southeast.
Stop imagining.
That agency exists.
Its name is DHEC — the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.
When it comes to decisions that stand to affect millions of people, DHEC has become known as an uneven watchdog for health and the environment. It often sides with companies it regulates during disputes with residents. It often shares crucial information slowly or not at all. And it sometimes remains silent rather than alerting the public to dangers.
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South Carolina’s fifth largest agency, with a $578 million annual budget, DHEC manages more than 150 programs in a growing state.
DHEC regulates the use of land, air and water. Checks tattoo parlors and hog farms. Tracks rabies outbreaks. Oversees prescription drugs and dialysis centers. Promotes flu shots. Monitors shellfish beds. Helps test for HIV.
Decides whether hospitals can expand. Runs health departments in each county. Records marriages, births and deaths.
DHEC’s staff includes welltrained scientists, engineers, nurses, lab technicians and investigators. For legal affairs, the agency has 16 staff attorneys.
No other state agency affects so many lives in so many ways.
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Four recent incidents have brought DHEC greater scrutiny — and stepped up questions of how well the agency does its job:
• DHEC in 1985 found dangerous amounts of lead in the drinking water of Richland County’s Franklin Park neighborhood. But it didn’t get the lead removed until 2005, as The State newspaper was going to press reporting that residents had lead in their blood.
• Not until earlier this year did DHEC post signs at rivers to warn residents of the dangers of eating mercury-laced fish at hundreds of fishing spots across the state. DHEC knew the health threat had been expanding since the early 1990s and had put notices out to the media. But the signs, placed where they can be seen by river users, went up only after Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper reported on mercury found in residents’ blood.
• For years, DHEC kept records secret that showed the magnitude of a radiation leak from a lowlevel nuclear waste dump in Barnwell County. DHEC had long acknowledged a leak. But at the landfill operator’s request, it withheld details, not even telling lawmakers last year as they debated whether to close the facility to the nation. When The State obtained the documents using open records laws, the newspaper discovered levels of radioactive tritium in some places as high as those at the nearby Savannah River nuclear weapons complex. State Attorney General Henry McMaster scolded DHEC for failing to produce the records.
• DHEC failed to closely monitor a Columbia sewer plant it knew had malfunctioned. Later, the plant was found spilling partially sewage into the popular Saluda River. Swimmers and waders complained of nausea and ear, eye, nose and throat infections. Some kayakers and canoers say they fell ill. DHEC waited six days to take water samples and seven days to notify the public. The agency says it and federal officials are investigating. Columbia environmental lawyer Bob Guild said “the community is watching” DHEC to see how much it fines the utility and how it explains what he says is a slowness to act. The agency’s water bureau chief David Wilson said last week DHEC could have been, if not faster, at least more thorough in notifying the public.
Those actions and others — on shoreline development, gas tank leaks, the rise of large landfills and the safety of group homes — have brought DHEC under increased scrutiny.
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[T]he agency is grappling with several issues as important as any in recent memory. Two in particular will affect future generations:
• DHEC is deciding whether to issue a permit to Santee Cooper, the state’s largest utility, to build a giant $2.2 billion coalfired electricity plant in Florence County. Coal plants are among the nation’s biggest air polluters. Airborne mercury, which falls back to earth and is ingested by fish, is of special concern. Eating mercurylaced fish can cause neurological problems, birth defects and damage children’s brains. In many states, coal plants have been cut back or shelved.
• DHEC has granted permits for one of the biggest — and potentially mostpolluting — projects Charleston will see for decades: a new cargo ship terminal at the city’s port. Conservation groups have appealed DHEC’s decision in state court. They note that ports are major sources of truck and ship pollution and that Charleston’s air quality is increasingly compromised.
A frequently heard criticism is that DHEC isn’t tough enough upfront with industries that have the potential to pollute.
In Charleston, some environmentalists, doctors and residents are criticizing DHEC for approving the port expansion before receiving the results of three air quality studies.
Judges rebuke DHEC, too.
In August, for example, a judge revoked permission DHEC had given for a 3,500hog swine farm to open in Dillon County. The judge ruled DHEC failed to make sure hog waste — 33 tons a day — wouldn’t pollute the Little Pee Dee River.
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In Myrtle Beach, five area lawmakers persuaded the state’s Legislative Audit Council to investigate whether DHEC adequately notifies the public of pollution threats.
In a letter, the lawmakers noted a “growing concern” over DHEC’s “accountability to the public.”
The Audit Council agreed Oct. 23 to scrutinize DHEC’s notification procedures as well as its handling of cleanups and fines.
The controversy grows out of a lawsuit and stories in The Sun News about toxiclaced groundwater that spread from AVX, a major electronic parts manufacturer. Although DHEC knew of the contamination since 1995 — and its potential to move off the property — it took a private landowner doing his own test in 2007 to discover the pollution had spread. The contamination has made surrounding homes “worthless,” according to the suit.
DHEC has said it tries to be upfront about pollution threats, but many city residents, including Mayor John Rhodes, say it hasn’t.
[...]A recurring criticism of DHEC is that it has a cozy relationship with businesses it regulates.
“Businesses do have an inside track,” said Ben Gregg, executive director of the S.C. Wildlife Federation and a former board member for the state Department of Natural Resources.
“When a company needs a permit for pollution, they go one on one with DHEC. By the time the public gets involved, the company and DHEC already have a relationship. Industry gets first bite of the apple,” Gregg said.
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Locked in a government storage room are files that tell the story of a leaking nuclear waste landfill near Barnwell.
But when environmental lawyer Bob Guild asked to see the documents one day five years ago, state regulators only gave him a thin folder.
Landfill operator Chem-Nuclear had persuaded regulators to withhold many of the files, arguing the information included trade secrets. Without the records, Guild lost a court case that could have forced tougher disposal practices at the 37-year-old landfill. “To say contamination records are trade secrets is just an outrage,” said Guild, who has appealed the court’s decision.
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Still, complaints about secrecy are easy to find. State lawmakers and Attorney General Henry McMaster are among those critical of DHEC’s public information efforts in recent years.
In 2007, McMaster scolded the agency for failing to produce records related to the nuclear waste landfill. DHEC had withheld the documents not only from Guild, but from The State newspaper as well as from legislators during a public hearing.
The House agriculture committee eventually voted to close the landfill to the nation. DHEC had long acknowledged the leaks but had not provided key details about the extent of the contamination. DHEC officials say they provided plenty of data about the leaks to the committee.
Some lawmakers say that’s not good enough. The Barnwell incident continues to bother them.
“They had ample opportunity to come forward and make that information available, but we did not hear about it until after the committee had made the decision,” Democratic Rep. Paul Agnew, an agriculture committee member from Abbeville, told The State recently. “I was disappointed in DHEC.”
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