DEP favors sister agencies
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A previously undisclosed state Department of Environmental Protection policy gives Harrisburg administrators sole power to approve environmental violation notices in cases involving other state or federal government agencies.
The policy change, detailed in an internal DEP memo obtained by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, covers environmental violations and enforcement actions that can involve state or federal prisons, parks and hospitals, and state universities or road building projects.
It extends prior policy that encouraged DEP field staff to avoid issuing a formal "notice of violation" to government agencies.
According to the March 2 memo, DEP field inspectors, regional program directors and regional directors are prohibited from issuing any "notice of violation" to the government agencies without receiving prior approval from the department's deputy secretary of field operations in Harrisburg.
The previous policy allowed many such decisions to be made at the district level. Among the agencies covered by the directive are the state Department of Corrections, Department of Conservation and Natural Resources and the federal Department of Military and Veterans Affairs.
The procedural change in the March 2 memo is similar to one contained in a March 23 internal email that directed DEP field inspectors to take no enforcement actions against Marcellus Shale drilling operations until they were approved by top DEP administrators in Harrisburg.
That change, specific to Marcellus Shale operations, caused grumbling in DEP offices and was widely criticized for undercutting public confidence in environmental enforcement. It was eventually rescinded and disavowed by the DEP at the beginning of May.
But the March 2 memo shows that the now-abandoned procedural change for dealing with Marcellus violations seems to have been part of a pattern to move enforcement actions from field staff and regional offices to top administrators in DEP's Harrisburg headquarters.
The two-page March 2 memo, signed by Kelly Jean Heffner, then the acting deputy secretary of field operations and now deputy secretary for water management, also continues, re-enforces and expands an existing DEP directive to avoid issuing formal violation notices to those government agencies.
First Published May 22, 2011 12:00 am
