By Roger Witherspoon
The Journal News (Westchester County, NY)
August 30, 2001 Thursday
DEP fined $50,000 for local violations
The Journal News
The head of the massive water system serving nine million Westchester County and
New York City residents admitted in federal court yesterday his agency contaminated
the water with mercury and PCBs.
Joel Miele, commissioner of the city's Department of Environmental Protection,
pleaded guilty to two criminal violations of the U.S. Clean Water Act. The federal,
felony charges were filed by the U.S. Attorney's Southern District office in New York.
Miele pleaded guilty on behalf of his agency before U.S. District Court Judge
Barrington D. Parker Jr. in White Plains after Parker demanded Miele appear in court.
Miele earlier had sent a legal representative to enter the plea.
The DEP was fined $50,000 for the violations, part of a plea bargain arrangement
that capped a long investigation and avoided a potential jury trial on more than 50
suspected cases of contamination and subsequent cover-up by the agency.
In addition, the agency was placed on probation for up to five years, and was
ordered to pay up to $300,000 annually to support an independent monitor and his
staff. The monitor, Patrick Nucciarone, an environmental lawyer from New Jersey,
will have complete access to all DEP records and personnel.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are considered probable carcinogens and have
also been associated with a host of neurological problems. Their use has been
banned for more than 20 years. Mercury poses serious health risks to human
nervous systems, even in very low doses. As little as a teaspoon of mercury will
contaminate a 1,750-acre reservoir.
Miele's plea involved mercury leaks from equipment moving the water through the
West Branch Reservoir in Carmel, and PCB contamination in the equipment shafts at
the Kensico Reservoir in Mount Pleasant. The mercury contamination, which spread
throughout the water system, was a felony. The PCB contamination was a criminal
misdemeanor.
The department also was ordered to contact all present and former employees who
may have come into contact with the PCBs and alert them to possible health risks
they may face.
In both cases, the agency knew of continuing problems with contamination, but did
not immediately stop it, properly clean it up, or properly report it, according to the
charges filed in court.
Miele admitted during the court proceedings that his agency knew since 1988 that
PCBs were leaking from the equipment in Westchester County near the Kensico
Reservoir.
During that period, he testified, "DEP employees came into contact and touched
surfaces contaminated with PCBs."
The agency decided in 1989 to remove the contaminated equipment, he continued,
but did not do so until this past spring.
The charges grew out of a three-year probe by the Federal Bureau of Investigation
and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, based on allegations made the
environmental group Riverkeeper.
"We had evidence of mercury spills, spills that were not reported properly, and
mercury not being cleaned up," said Riverkeeper's Mark Yaggi.
In Carmel, he continued, the agency listed a mercury spill in 1995 at less than a
pound at their facility in Carmel. At that level, he said, it did not have to be reported
to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and properly cleaned up.
"Three years later," Yaggi said, "we found out there were actually six pounds of free-
standing mercury still there."
In that case, the state Department of Environmental Conservation asked the city
agency for an explanation. In a written response, DEP Deputy Director Thomas Hook
wrote that the area in which the spill occurred "is dark and it is difficult to see."
A formal statement of problems at the DEP presented in court by the U.S. Attorney's
Office, noted "compliance with environmental laws has not been a priority among
those at DEP entrusted with running the water supply system.
"Instead, that system historically has been run by engineers whose priority has been
operational. There has for many years been a deeply ingrained belief among at least
some DEP managers that their sole task is to deliver water to New York City, and
that with respect to chemicals that may enter that water 'dilution is the solution to
pollution.' "
The federal document continued that many DEP officials still believe that because the
system delivers more than 1.4 billion gallons of water daily to the region's residents,
"DEP's discharge of pollutants into that water will have no measurable effect, so
stopping such pollution is not a priority."
Miele stated in court that he believed "the water is safe," but he would not discuss
the case otherwise.
The U. S. Attorney's Office would not discuss their decisions on the plea agreement.
Robert F. Kennedy Jr., chief prosecutor for Riverkeeper, said Miele ought to resign or
be fired by Mayor Rudolph Giuliani.
"He is a very bad administrator," Kennedy said. "There were over 50 violations, 50
illegal spills that the department covered up. In every one of those cases, the law
was broken."
The DEP, Kennedy continued, "is the primary law enforcement agency for the
watershed. What happens when that agency becomes the largest criminal violator of
the law they are charged with enforcing?
"Someone ought to be held accountable."