MULTIMILLION DOLLAR AGENCY ALLEGEDLY FAILING PUBLIC IN ALMOST EVERY WAY POSSIBLE

The sole purpose of South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental Control is to promote and protect the health of the public and the environment. Yet recent actions show the agency is doing pretty much everything but that.

The State wrote Saturday that DHEC has “given polluters breaks, withheld information from the public, pushed development over the protection of natural resources and angered residents from Greenville to Charleston.” But those allegations can’t all be true, can they?

Imagine a state agency that helps developers build in fragile areas close to the ocean — at taxpayer expense… that oversees homes for the disabled in which at least three people have died from neglect in two years… [that posts] one of the nation’s worst records for cleaning up leaks from underground gasoline tanks — in a state where more than a quarter of residents drink from wells… hat regulates garbage landfills helping to turn the state into a trash mecca for the Southeast. Stop imagining. That agency exists.[...]

Its name is DHEC — the S.C. Department of Health and Environmental Control.

When it comes to decisions that stand to affect millions of people, DHEC has become known as an uneven watchdog for health and the environment. It often sides with companies it regulates during disputes with residents. It often shares crucial information slowly or not at all. And it sometimes remains silent rather than alerting the public to dangers. [...]

The story goes on for about 20,000 more words or something, but the main point is that DHEC — with its $578 million annual budget — manages more than 150 key programs. But the agency’s management has become so extremely reckless that they’re doing more harm than good.

The paper cited four major incidents:

• DHEC in 1985 found dangerous amounts of lead in the drinking water of Richland County’s Franklin Park neighborhood. But it didn’t get the lead removed until 2005, as The State newspaper was going to press reporting that residents had lead in their blood.

• Not until earlier this year did DHEC post signs at rivers to warn residents of the dangers of eating mercurylaced fish at hundreds of fishing spots across the state. DHEC knew the health threat had been expanding since the early 1990s and had put notices out to the media. But the signs, placed where they can be seen by river users, went up only after Charleston’s Post and Courier newspaper reported on mercury found in residents’ blood.

• For years, DHEC kept records secret that showed the magnitude of a radiation leak from a lowlevel nuclear waste dump in Barnwell County. DHEC had long acknowledged a leak. But at the landfill operator’s request, it withheld details, not even telling lawmakers last year as they debated whether to close the facility to the nation. When The State obtained the documents using open records laws, the newspaper discovered levels of radioactive tritium in some places as high as those at the nearby Savannah River nuclear weapons complex. State Attorney General Henry McMaster scolded DHEC for failing to produce the records.

• DHEC failed to closely monitor a Columbia sewer plant it knew had malfunctioned. Later, the plant was found spilling partially sewage into the popular Saluda River. Swimmers and waders complained of nausea and ear, eye, nose and throat infections. Some kayakers and canoers say they fell ill. DHEC waited six days to take water samples and seven days to notify the public. The agency says it and federal officials are investigating. Columbia environmental lawyer Bob Guild said “the community is watching” DHEC to see how much it fines the utility and how it explains what he says is a slowness to act. The agency’s water bureau chief David Wilson said last week DHEC could have been, if not faster, at least more thorough in notifying the public.

Those actions and others — on shoreline development, gas tank leaks, the rise of large landfills and the safety of group homes — have brought DHEC under increased scrutiny.

Taken separately, DHEC’s actions seem unconnected.

Taken as a whole, they form a pattern: DHEC falls short in its role as the public’s chief protector.

The State billed this story as an exclusive but it’s really not. Everyone in South Carolina knows DHEC is an epic failure.

And unlike some other state government agencies that blatantly waste taxpayer money, DHEC actually takes that money and uses it against taxpayers.

Using public funding to harm the public — that’s truly quite an accomplishment.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 16th, 2008 at 2:16 pm and is filed under Executive. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.