I would like to thank the mayor, council and staff of Chestertown for a very good open meeting on Monday, April 21st. In spite of a very full agenda, the mayor invited Shore Regional Health to present an overview and held a candid discussion about the Corrective Action Plan (CAP) for cleaning up the estimated hundred thousand gallons of heating oil that have seeped from the hospital’s leaking underground storage tank.
At the same time I want to emphasize that this long overdue first step in providing the opportunity for public notification and participation must not be the last step in this process. Such discussion and transparency are not only emblematic of good governance; they are also required under both State and Federal Environmental Laws.
Lest there be any misunderstanding, the Code of Maryland Regulations (COMAR) 26.10.09.08 requires public participation on sites that require a Corrective Action Plan. This regulation further states that: “Notice must be given to the public directly affected by the release and the corrective action plan. In certain cases, the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) will require the responsible party to hold a public meeting to consider the comments on the plan.” These same regulations also define “public directly affected” as any drinking water source, human exposure or environmental ecological exposure within 5/10 of a mile. Since our municipal water supply is only 3/10 of a mile downhill from this spill and my home is only 4/10 of a mile from this spill and the Chester River is less than 5/10 of a mile from the spill, most of your readers and I are obviously members of the “public directly affected.”
While it is true that Public Hearings are not mandatory in every such case, no agreement between MDE and the hospital abrogates the public’s right to know. Furthermore, I think it is important for your readers to understand just how routine it is for MDE to hold public hearings on issues far less serious than this. For example, when I served as Riverkeeper on the Chester River I was generally impressed with MDE’s willingness to inform the public and hold hearings any time that modifications were planned for wastewater treatment plants in our area. Ironically, those hearings were held even when those modifications, at worst, posed no threat to human health. Yet here in Chestertown, when our primary drinking water supply has been threatened, no such hearing was even contemplated.
While the hospital, MDE and the town of Chestertown are now working together to respond to this serious problem that threatens our municipal water supply, this has not always been the case. Town Manager, Bill Ingersoll, highlighted many of the problems in a letter to MDE last October and on Monday night our Utilities Department Manager, Bob Sipes, complained about the serious lack of transparency throughout this process. Promises to keep the town informed have been ignored and even requests for information about the ingredients contained in the surfactant that the hospital proposes to inject into the groundwater were consistently rebuffed – even when that information was readily available.
Even more serious, neither the town nor the citizens who live in the immediate area were fully informed when the hospital and MDE decided to modify the Corrective Action Plan and discontinued the pumping operation that was designed to protect the surrounding area (including the town wells) from continued migration of the oil spill into the ground water. Such obfuscation and lack of transparency only serve to create suspicion that the perpetrators are hiding something (even when they are not) and have no place in our community.
In conclusion, I want to emphasize that I am not criticizing current or future technical solutions that may be proposed by the hospital or by MDE. I am confident that any such proposals will be properly reviewed by Bob Sipes as well as the Mayor, the Council and their technical experts. What I am insisting on is that we act immediately to keep the public better informed and promote greater transparency in this process so that we can both respond properly to this oil spill and restore trust within our community.
Bill Anderson says
Editor,
Maybe the mayor and town council have erred by not initiating a legal action to compel the hospital to pay for a replacement drinking water well outside the oil spill-affected area, in addition to being solely responsible for remedial action on the “hundred thousand gallon heating oil” release. Town residents and taxpayers should be held harmless in this.
Keith Thompson says
Editor,
To expand on Mr. Anderson’s comments…I think this illustrates why pollution should be treated more as a local trespass issue than as a state or federal regulatory issue. Essentially you have an oil spill that has the potential to threaten the drinking water for the town of Chestertown and its residents. The town (and its citizens) are the injured party and it is incumbent on the party responsible for the action to rectify the problem or pay restitution to the injured parties. While it may have to involve lawyers and lawsuits, it’s a proactive approach that aims to hold people or entities responsible for their actions. This concept isn’t dissimilar to what is happening with the Clean Chesapeake Coalition that is highlighting the role of the Conowingo Dam in contributing to Chesapeake Bay pollution and holding the dam’s owner responsible for their share.
What this issue highlights to me is the danger of seeking state or federal solutions to local problems. While state and federal regulations are clear, the trouble comes with the enforcement of them since the regulators are influenced by various financial or political interests. As long as citizens or county and municipal governments operate under the assumption that the state and federal laws will protect them, they become complacent in solving problems in their own communities. After all, the Chestertown drinking water supply is a far greater concern to the residents of Chestertown than it is to someone sitting behind a desk in Annapolis or in Washington, DC.
I’m certainly not suggesting that we junk all state and federal regulations, but I suggest a change of mindset that gets us back to active local problem solving rather than seeking political answers that usually results in ineffectively throwing money at a problem.