Green Delaware Alert # 43--CALLS AND EMAILS NEEDED to Stop Proposed 50% Increase in City of Wilmington Sewage Pollution (long, slightly off-topic, but morbidly amusing))

[Alan Muller <amuller@dca.net>]

Green Delaware Alert # 43

Stop Proposed 50% Increase in City of Wilmington Sewage Pollution

CALLS AND EMAILS NEEDED

The City of Wilmington DE dumps treated sewage into the Delaware River, and
untreated (raw) sewage into its tributaries Christina River and Brandywine
Creek through about 40 “combined sewer overflows” (“CSOs”). These waterways are
so highly polluted that fish caught in them cannot be safely eaten due to
contamination with PCBs, mercury and other pollutants.  They stink.  Condoms
and such float by.  For several years Green Delaware has worked to clean up
this situation.   Authorities response:

Delaware environmental officials demanded Green Delaware’s mailing list,
threatening to alter our testimony at a hearing unless we handed it over. (Of
course, we refused, but no mainstream Delaware environmental organization
supported us.)  The Gannett-owned Wilmington News Journal editorialized in
favor of this demand for our membership list, and later on their columnist
Harry Themal wrote that we were “Stone Age” people.

The Delaware General Assembly set up a “Combined Sewer Overflow Task Force.” 
We were not invited to the meetings, and the group made a report which DID NOT
call for the elimination of the CSO’s.  Thanks to Delaware Senator Patty
Blevins for this one.

The University of Delaware arrested us for distributing leaflets calling for
cleanup of the Wilmington sewers.  It did not arrest Attorney General M. Jane
Brady and other pols campaigning nearby.  While the University eventually
dropped charges and apologized, the student environmental organization
(“Students for the Environment”), the campus branch of the American Civil
Liberties Union, and the student newspaper (“The Review”) all helped cover up
the scandal.  The News (“Stooge”) Journal, of course, blacked it out, as did
WHYY “public” televison station (Channel 12).

Now the City has requested and the Administration of Governor Tom Carper (now
running for the US Senate) has proposed to give Wilmington a permit allowing a
FIFTY PERCENT INCREASE in sewage pollutant dumping into the Delaware River. 
Average daily dumping of listed pollutants would increase from 49 to 73
thousand pounds per day.  Lead would increase from 50 to 55 pounds per day
(20,000 pounds per year).  Mercury would increase to 175 pounds per year. 
Chromium would increase to 168 pounds per day.  And so on.  No limitations, or
even monitoring, are proposed for PCBs, dioxins and other “persistent
bioaccumulative toxins” known to be present in the Wilmington sewers.  The
Delaware River Basin Commission and the Environmental Protection Agency seem
ready to go along with this.

Green Delaware objects to this permit and requested a public hearing, to be
held on December 1 at 1900 in the Council Chambers, City-County Building,
Wilmington, DE.  Delaware Div. of Water Resources folk have ways of making
public hearings into farces.  Example: at a previous hearing requested by Green
Delaware, also about increased pollution of the Delaware River (in this case
the dumper was the utility Conectiv) the hearing was held more than an hour
away from the site in question and the permit writer and other knowledgeable
officials were told to stay away so they couldn’t be questioned.  The Hearing
Officer was grossly hostile.  The only member of Delaware’s “environmental
community” to appear (Jerry Shields) testified in favor of Conectiv.  In the
present case, officials have scheduled a “workshop” before the hearing, with
the obvious intent of reducing the actual hearing (the only legally significant
event) to a technicality.  Sid Sharma, the responsible Wilmington Dept. of
Public Works official, told us this afternoon that he won’t attend the
hearing.  Mayor Jim Sills’ assistant Tom Noyes has told us that the Mayor’s
office won’t be represented either.  We’ve responded by asking that the
“workshop” be cancelled, and--per the law governing such public hearings--that
subpoenas be issued to appropriate City and State officials to make them show
up.  

On October 20th we met with Mayor Sills of Wilmington.  We asked him to
withdraw the permit application and work with us to design and fund a real
cleanup of the Wilmington sewers.  (The Federal government has given many
billions of dollars for sewer cleanups to cities smart enough to ask for
money.)  Key bad actor--and the people who actually tell Sills what do to­are
the DuPont Company and MBNA (a credit card bank having deals with the Sierra
Club and the National Resources Defense Council).  These corporations run
Delaware like a feudal estate, and their thousands of employees in Wilmington
poop directly into the rivers whenever it rains.

Are you still with us?   We know all this sounds absurd, but it’s
real--environmental regulation in the belly of the beast, “The chemical capital
of the world.”  As usual, we are asking our friends for help.  Join us in
opposing the proposed permit, either by attending the hearing or by contacting
these people, and­if you live in Delaware­your local Senator and
Representative:  Nick DiPasquale, Delaware’s Secretary of Natural Resources,
302.739.4403, ndipasqualr@state.de.us; Governor Carper, 302.577.3210,
ssnyder@gov.state.de.us; Mayor Sills, 302.571.4160, mayor@ci.wilmington.de.us;
the Delaware River Basin Comm., 609.883.9500, ccollier@drbc.state.nj.us; and
the EPA, 215.814.2900, r3public@epamail.epa.gov. Let them hear from you. 
Contact the Sierra Club (carl.pope@sierraclub.org,
JAMES.J.STEFFENS@usa.dupont.com) and ask it to stop taking money from MBNA
until the bank cleans up its act.  (Send us copies please.)

Sincere thanks.

Alan Muller, Executive Director
Green Delaware
Box 69
Port Penn, DE 19731 USA
(302)834-3466
fax (302)836-3005 
greendel@dca.net
http//members.dca.net/greendel/

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