Highlights:
- Vitter-Inhofe proposed bill "would add to the public health and environmental risks facing our communities
- The groups called the proposal "unwarranted and dangerous."
- Includes threats from contaminated drinking water supplies, polluted flood waters, broken sewage treatment systems, oil and chemical exposures, toxic sediments and sludge, and the safety of recovery personnel as well as returning residents and business owners.
MIKE DUNNE, Advocate staff writer
Several Gulf Coast environmental groups and a union are asking Republican U.S. Sen. David Vitter of Louisiana to withdraw proposed legislation that would allow the suspension and waiving of environmental laws in the wake of Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Vitter and Sen. James Inhofe, R-Okla., are sponsoring the bill that would allow laws such as the Safe Drinking Water Act, the Clean Water Act, the Clean Air Act, hazardous-waste laws and others to he to be "waived or downplayed," the groups said in a letter to Vitter and other members of the U.S. Senate.
A request for comment from Vitter through his press office in Washington didn't result in a response. In the letter to Vitter and others, the groups said: "Indeed, in the wake of the hurricane, we believe these laws are most desperately needed to protect communities from these unprecedented hazards," the groups said in the letter.
The groups said the Vitter-Inhofe proposed bill "would add to the public health and environmental risks facing our communities by giving the administrator of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency the authority to waive or change any law under the EPA's jurisdiction or that applies to any project or activity carried out by the agency for up to 18 months."
The groups called the proposal "unwarranted and dangerous." Monitoring data and the initial assessments prepared by the EPA and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention portray "a complex array of environmental health" problems in New Orleans.
"This array includes threats from contaminated drinking water supplies, polluted flood waters, broken sewage treatment systems, oil and chemical exposures, toxic sediments and sludge, and the safety of recovery personnel as well as returning residents and business owners. People from other Gulf Coast communities are also facing some or all of these hazards."
They point out that the EPA admits the extent of the public health and environmental risks is not well known, especially in the storm-damaged areas of New Orleans.
Groups signing the letter were:
Alabama Environmental Council, Alabama Rivers Alliance, Alabama Watch, Alliance for Affordable Energy, Tulane Law School Environmental Law Clinic, Friends of Moss Rock Preserve, Gulf Restoration Network, Louisiana ACORN, Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Mobile Baywatch/Mobile Baykeeper, Service Employees International Union Local 100, Sierra Club-Alabama Chapter, Sierra Club-Delta Chapter, Sierra Club-Mississippi Chapter, The Urban Conservancy, and WildLaw.