Ask an environmental regulator what they do -- and they're likely to say this: making sure people don't break the law and don't pollute. But as a WNPR investigation found out, getting people to obey environmental rules can be tricky.
Take underground gas storage tanks. The kind you'd find buried beneath concrete at convenience stores all over Connecticut. Last year, the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection carried out 1,137 of these inspections. Five inspectors did all this work. And DEEP says 43 percent of those inspections resulted in an environmental violation.
Here's where the philosophy of all this regulation gets interesting: most of those violations were for minor stuff. Not big spills or leaks, but things like incorrect paperwork, employees that didn't get trained right, or bad inventory records.
So, the question is, should these rule breakers get fined?
"A lot of times, if they're operating on a thin margin, it's: 'I have money to fix my system and come back into compliance, or I have money to pay a penalty, but I don't necessarily have money to do both,'" said Lori Saliby, a supervising environmental analyst at DEEP.
Because of that, she said, DEEP often issues what's called a "notice of violation." It's an informal written warning with no financial penalty that basically says 'you're breaking the law, fix the problem.' But since this class of violators isn't getting penalized financially, the state's Council on Environmental Quality has raised another question: do these warnings actually work?
A WNPR investigation discovered that in 2014, about 40 percent of underground storage tank violation notices didn't result in the problem getting fixed.
"Penalties are important to get people to comply," said Karl Wagener, executive director of the state Council on Environmental Quality. "There's no incentive for some people to obey the law. I want to make it clear: I think for some companies, it's very important to themselves that they comply with the law, but there are other people who apparently don't care."
DEEP's Saliby said since violators have a month to fix (or respond with plans for how they'll fix a problem) the 40 percent of open cases can be deceiving. She said some violators can be working on an issue, but the case remains open on the books. She also said since her inspection team hits a site at least once every three years -- they'll be back again relatively soon. So her office needs to evaluate whether escalating to the next level of enforcement -- issuing something like a formal order --- makes sense, since it could result in court battles and appeals.
Wagener still thinks waiting to close a case is a problem. "It's probably not consistent with what the public expects," he said. "I think the public probably figures that if DEEP finds a company out of compliance that they would advise them of that in some way and that the company would be required to come back into compliance very soon."
A WNPR investigation discovered that in 2014, about 40 percent of underground storage tank violation notices didn't result in the problem getting fixed.
In New England, other states have taken a more aggressive approach at closing out cases. Vermont recently developed something it calls "citation authority," issuing what are essentially traffic tickets for minor environmental crime. The penalties are open to appeal, but violators can avoid lawyers and lots of paperwork by paying a fine, fixing the problem, and making the whole thing go away.
"It lets us address violations that in the past, we just had to let go," said Gary Kessler, head of the state's compliance and enforcement division. "We just cataloged them. We recognized that they happened, or the programs did. And they didn't do anything about them."
Kessler said his state developed a range of fines that can be issued for minor environmental violations. He's optimistic it will close out cases and boost compliance rates. But since Vermont has only been doing this for about two years, he says the data isn't in yet.
"It's just getting people to know that they did something wrong with more than a notice of alleged violation," Kessler continued. "It focuses the mind. If it costs you $500, you're probably going to do better and not let that slip again -- because it costs you money."
Rhode Island is following Vermont's lead. Last year, it began issuing its own brand of environmental tickets, and, so far, it's sent about 170 of these to businesses and individuals for things like minor septic tank violations.
Back in Connecticut, a DEEP official said any changes bringing a similar citation-type authority to the state would have to go through the legislature.
Currently, there are no proposals on the table, but DEEP's Lori Saliby said her office is open to exploring new enforcement tools.
"Our objective is always to get compliance back so that we can protect the environment," she said. "Protecting the environment by writing us a check may not necessarily be the best way. In some cases, maybe it's effective, but there's also this idea that perhaps it's just taking money away from what they could do to upgrade their system."
