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Published October 11, 2007
Half of plants break sewage laws
By
PERRY BEEMAN
REGISTER STAFF WRITER
More than half of the major Iowa
industrial and municipal facilities violated their sewage permits in 2005 by
discharging more pollution than allowed, Environment Iowa reported Thursday.
The average Iowa
facility -- an industrial plant or city sewage system, for example --
discharged nearly seven times more pollution than allowed during the periods
the violations were recorded, the group reported. In all, 55.5 percent of Iowa's major plants
violated the permits in 2005, the most recent federal data available. That
was the the fifth-worst record in the country. Across the country, 57 percent
of the facilities reported the violations.
The group's parent organization, U.S. Public Research Interest Group, reviewed
records obtained under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act. The review of
monthly discharge found 71 Iowa
facilities that topped pollution limits described in their federal permit in
at least six of the 12 monthly reporting periods.
"As the Clean Water Act turns 35, polluters continue to foul our rivers,
lakes and streams," said Benjamin Praster of Environment Iowa, the
environmental policy arm of Iowa PIRG, both nonprofit groups The 1972 act
sought to eliminate pollution in waterways so they would be clean enough for
full use as fishing and swimming waters.
The federal data analyzed did not include thousands of smaller facilities
across the country, including many of Iowa's
smaller sewage treatment plants.
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