Retired EPA Attorney Says Region 5 Chief Withheld NPDES Permit Criticism

摘要

A retired EPA water attorney is asking the agency's inspector general (IG) to investigate allegations that Region 5 Administrator Cathy Stepp suppressed critical staff comments on a water permit for a controversial Minnesota mine, clearing the way for a permit that environmentalists and a member of Congress say is inadequate. The allegations, if proven, could help critics of the Clean Water Act (CWA) permit challenge it in court by arguing that agency staff had highlighted problems over the permit that Stepp then withheld from the public docket for it. In a Jan. 31 letter to the IG, Jeffry Fowley, a retired EPA attorney who has consulted for environmental groups, notes allegations that EPA Region 5 officials deemed a draft Minnesota Pollution Control Agency (MPCA) National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the PolyMet mine inadequate but their input was suppressed. Region 5 covers Minnesota, as well as Indiana, Illinois, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. The letter is available on InsideEPA.com. (Doc. ID: 218718)