Neronha Lashes Out at DEM, McKee, and GoLocal When Questioned About Lack of Enviro Enforcement
Sunday, March 12, 2023
Twice in the past year, the Woonsocket Wastewater Facility has discharged untreated waste into the Blackstone River. The first time in June of 2022 forced the closure of the river, and now there is an ongoing discharge of improperly treated waste again.
No enforcement action has been taken by the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management or Rhode Island Attorney General Peter Neronha.
On Thursday, Save the Bay called for enforcement action.
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“They are also a violation of the Clean Water Act. Clearly, something is very wrong with operations at the Woonsocket facility,” said McPherson.
Neronha Lashes Out
Friday, GoLocal asked Neronha — Rhode Island’s top law enforcement official— why his office had failed to take enforcement action on the discharges into the Blackstone over the past nine months.
Both Neronha and his office, in a series of emails, lashed out.
“Really? Which former AG has ever brought a Clean Water Act case, as the Attorney General did when he was US Attorney, or has matched this administration’s environmental enforcement record, which environmental groups have recognized across the state. The premise of your question is outlandish,” said Neronha's spokesman Brian Hodge.
GoLocal provided a number of examples when former previous Rhode Island Attorney Generals sought enforcement of the Clean Water Act, including when then-Rhode Island Attorney General Sheldon Whitehouse took action. Sheldon Whitehouse, Attorney General, State of Rhode Island, and Jan Reitsma, Director of the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, Plaintiffs, Appellants, v. David Laroche, et al., Defendants, Appellees, (1st Cir. 2002)
GoLocal then cited when Neronha's predecessor Peter Kilmartin had been active against upstream discharges on the Blackstone. In 2012, GoLocal reported that "Citing damage to Narragansett Bay, Attorney General Peter F. Kilmartin, is asking the Rhode Island congressional delegation to stand firm against a bid by a Massachusetts official to forestall limits on how much nitrogen and phosphorous a wastewater-treatment plant near Worcester is allowed to discharge into the Blackstone River."
GoLocal offered to provide Neronha's office with other examples of Rhode Island Attorney Generals taking action to enforce the Clean Water Act.
Neronha Criticizes DEM and McKee
Neronha then criticized the McKee administration and the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management (DEM). Neronha said his office could not take action because DEM regulators had failed to do their job.
“The fact is that clean water act cases are based on in-the-field investigations by environmental enforcement agencies, that is, DEM and EPA, and administrative actions by those agencies, including the issuance of notices of violation in the first instance. The Office cannot take action until those investigations are complete. We continue to encourage those agencies to take the necessary and appropriate investigatory steps. You should direct questions about the progress of those steps to those agencies or the Office of the Governor, to whom DEM reports,” said Neronha's office in an email to GoLocal.
Questions About Neronha's Environmental Record
GoLocal, over the past few years, has published a number of reports raising questions about Neronha’s environmental record.
One article outlined in detail his record for Neronha's first two years as Attorney General -- and, specifically about his enforcement record.
In his first nearly two years in office as the state’s chief law enforcement official, there has been little emphasis on pursuing environmental crimes.
In the first 20 months in office, Neronha issued 139 press releases and just one was related to environmental enforcement.
The press release claimed that his office had levied a record penalty, but the majority of the fine was waived as part of the settlement — no longer making it a record penalty.
Neronha as U.S. Attorney, environmental enforcement plummeted during the Neronha era. Under Neronha between 2013 and 2018, his office issued more than 820 press releases, and just two dealt with the environment. One of the announcements regarded a 20+-year-old Superfund case and the other was a settlement agreement by U.S. Environmental Protection Agency against RIDOT.
Neronha has also sent out a series of releases about a settlement with a series of petroleum companies tied to the leakage MBTE contaminating drinking water in Pascoag. The leakage began in 2001, and the state's lawsuit was filed in 2012.
Fewer Enforcement Actions -- and Penalties Collected
From 2015 to 2019, RIDEM issued just $4,519,831 in penalties for illegal disposal of hazardous and solid waste, water pollution and/or pollution violations — but those penalties were riddled down to just $1,189,575 in collected fines.
Save the Bay, Rhode Island’s leading environmental organization, told GoLocal at the time, “The absence of enforcement not only compromises the environment, but it also represents a breakdown in the effort to deter future violations. Delayed or weak enforcement also frequently results in settlements that, in the end, do not fully protect the resource that was degraded by the original violation. Protecting Narragansett Bay, the water we drink and the air we breathe requires vigorous, timely enforcement.”
“In recent decades, we have observed a significant decrease in the funding and resources allocated to DEM. The department has reduced both the number of formal enforcement actions and the frequency and amount of penalties associated with violating the laws that protect our natural resources and public health. Generally speaking, diminished and delayed enforcement has serious consequences,” Save the Bay told GoLocal in 2020.
Neronha Laches Out at GoLocal
On Friday, Neronha said in an email to GoLocal in response to questions about the lack of action against those responsible for the discharges into The Blackstone River, “Mr. Fenton’s questions and responses demonstrate yet again that he is an uninformed and unprincipled player in the media marketplace. No matter how many slanted and critical articles he writes, I will never accede to his requests that my campaign advertise with his website.”
GoLocal has not accepted political advertising in the past two election cycles — 2020 nor 2022.
Dumping in the Olneyville neighborhood first unveiled by GoLocal in September of 2020 PHOTO: GoLocal
Neronha did take action on the 6/10 dumping after U.S. Attorney Zachary Cunha entered into a non-prosecution agreement -- and 2.5 years after GoLocal first reported the alleged crimes.
Ironically, GoLocal endorsed Neronha in 2022. — READ HERE.
“We are all adults. Neronha might try enforcing laws rather than criticizing partnership agencies like the DEM and the media. Hopefully, he will take appropriate actions to hold those responsible for polluting our waterways responsible,” added Fenton.
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