[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 116 (Monday, September 10, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S9205-S9207]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




       THE LAST OF THE ``SLUDGE'' FROM THE CLINTON ADMINISTRATION

  Mr. CRAIG. Mr. President, I am on the floor of the Senate today to 
speak to an issue that is right in Washington D.C., in our midst. It is 
something that I think few of us realize, but it has begun to get the 
attention of the American public. We have seen several news articles on 
it in the last month.
  Mr. President, the Bush administration inherited an environmental 
mess from previous administrations over the past good number of years. 
As I have said, it is right here in the backyard of Washington, DC. The 
Washington Aqueduct, which is operated by the Army Corps of Engineers, 
is in violation of the Endangered Species Act and the Clean Water Act. 
Millions of pounds of sludge, laced with alum, are created when the 
Potomac River water is treated for drinking water for the Washington, 
D.C. and Northern Virginia area.
  I have a picture of the release of the aqueduct into the Potomac 
River. Rather than send the sludge to a landfill, as other cities are 
required to do, it is dumped back into the Potomac River. Strangely 
enough, Mr. President, it is dumped into the river at

[[Page S9206]]

night. Why? I suspect so that the public will not see it or ask the 
question: What is it? Therefore, it is dumped through the Chesapeake 
and the Ohio Canal National Historic Park.
  The Corps claims that to alter this process so that it functions like 
other water treatment facilities will take years to plan, to build, and 
to become operational. The only problem is that they have been saying 
that now for decades.

  The Corps has stated that if it were prohibited from dumping millions 
of pounds of toxic sludge into the river to protect an endangered 
species would create a security crisis. What would the crisis be? Well, 
it would deprive the White House, the Congress, the courts, and the 
Pentagon of adequate drinking water.
  Mr. President, I have to be honest. That kind of an argument and that 
situation outrages me. I believe that no one should be above the law, 
including the Nation's Capital. Of all the places that I thought we 
would never hear the phrase, ``not in my backyard,'' we are hearing it 
repeatedly said right here in Washington by the Army Corps of 
Engineers. A situation of this nature would never have occurred in the 
West because the Endangered Species Act would have trumped all of the 
other needs first. In fact, a community would be taxed beyond its 
capacity to finance a new facility and that facility would be ordered 
to be built by a court. There would be no arbitrary frustration of 
national security or that we simply can't get there in a timely 
fashion.
  Let me give you an example in McCall, ID. The drinking water source 
from the community is cleaner than the standards of the Safe Water 
Drinking Act. However, the community has been struggling for the last 
decade to finance a new drinking water system in order to comply with 
Federal regulations.
  I strongly feel that no one entity should operate as if it was above 
the law and especially in our Nation's Capital. If changes need to be 
made to the Washington Aqueduct, then the Corps should be taking steps 
to work with the affected communities to establish a new plan. That is 
what is expected of all of the communities in my State, in the West, 
and across the Nation, and no less should be expected by our Nation's 
Capital.
  A new discharge permit would require the current illegal discharge to 
cease, and that, of course, is the problem. This new permit has not 
been issued because there is a concern by local residents who do not 
want the dump trucks hauling the sludge through their community; thus, 
a resulting belief that ratepayers would prefer that the sludge be 
dumped into the river rather than pay for the cost of the facilities to 
treat it. At least that appears to be the attitude at this moment.
  I have a hard time believing that the residents of any community 
would want to pollute the water of their community and especially 
through the middle of a national park. However, this is the typical 
response of ``not in my backyard.'' We now affectionately call it NIMBY 
or being ``NIMBYfied.''
  Clearly, in this instance, Washington is silent in its NIMBYism. The 
situation, I repeat, would not be tolerated in the West because a 
Federal court would order a community to stand down and be responsible 
under the regulations of the law.
  According to the Army Corps, the volume of chemically treated sludge 
discharged into the primary, if not the only, spawning habitat of the 
endangered shortnose sturgeon is large enough to require 15 dump 
truckloads a day to haul it away from the area.
  This chart is a picture taken at dawn of the sludge pouring into the 
river. While it is hard to see, in the distance lies the natural 
quality of the water. This is the chemical sludge that pours into the 
Potomac River during the night. Of course, this is a picture that is 
not very handsome, and I am sure the Army Corps of Engineers would not 
like to have it dramatized, but in reality, this is exactly what goes 
on. This dumping represents 15 truckloads of material that should be 
hauled away on a daily basis.

  It has been concluded that a single enormous discharge that includes 
several million pounds of solids, often done under the cover of night, 
as I have mentioned, or in inclement weather, may contain the 
equivalent of a significant amount of the total annual discharge of 
phosphorous and nitrogen by the city's sewer treatment facilities. This 
gives you the magnitude of the problem with which we are dealing.
  In the mid-1990's, area residents managed to get the Congress to 
require that Federal agencies give special attention to the concerns of 
the local residents when the facility was repermitted and thwarted the 
EPA's issuance of a new permit that would have halted the dumping. In 
other words, there was an effort at one point, but local citizens and, 
quietly, the EPA in the mid-90'S winked and nodded and said--``Not In 
Our Backyard.'' This is the Nation's Capital and it would create a 
national security problem, and so you are permitted. No new permit, 
though, has been issued since the old one expired. They just let it 
roll on. The expired permit has no limits on the total suspended 
solids, alum, and iron, discharged by the aqueduct. No other city in 
the Nation would get away with that, nor would there be a wink and a 
nod. The aqueduct discharges under continuation of the old permit 
pending issuance of a new one.
  The Department of Justice contends this is not a violation of the ESA 
to dump millions of pounds of chemically treated sludge into the 
primary spawning habitat of an endangered species that may be present 
at the exact location of the dumping in the Potomac River.
  None of this is going on in the Columbia and Snake Rivers, and yet we 
have five listed endangered species of salmon there. That water must be 
maintained in a near or pristine quality, and we have all kinds of 
activities going on up and down the stretch of the rivers to improve 
the water quality, but not in Washington and not for the shortnose 
sturgeon.
  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries 
Service have stated that the discharge may also result in chemo-sensory 
disruption and EPA documents state that the discharges may result in 
what we call bio-accumulation of harmful chemicals. I am getting a 
little more technical than is necessary.
  This picture is worth a thousand more words than I can express about 
the situation that is going on.
  The National Marine Fisheries Service is allowing the project to 
proceed on the basis that the fish has not been verified in the upper 
tidals of the Potomac. Yet the regional director of the National Marine 
Fisheries Service stated more than 2 years ago that studies funded by 
the Corps that were critical to the analysis of the sturgeon status in 
the Potomac would commence that spring.
  It was determined that the fish are in the river. Only four species 
have been verified, not counting reports of sturgeon caught by sports 
fishermen. In fact, at one time, sturgeon was so abundant in the river, 
along with other fish, that it created a commercial fishery. George 
Washington took advantage of that commercial fishery with his own fleet 
of fishing boats. In fact, I am oftentimes told, and I have even looked 
at the transcripts from Mount Vernon, that one of the most lucrative 
parts of the Mount Vernon operation was fishing in the Potomac. We know 
that cannot happen nor would it happen today.

  The National Marine Fisheries Service has concluded that the fish is 
present in the general area because commercial fishermen turned in the 
sturgeon they happened to catch in their nets in response to a reward 
program for another species of sturgeon that was known to be in the 
area.
  The bottom line is, there are threatened and endangered fish in the 
Potomac River, and yet the Army Corps has done nothing in response to 
the need to cooperate.
  In my State of Idaho, or any other State in the Nation, this is a 
practice that would not be tolerated, and that is why I have come to 
the floor today. We pass laws, you and I, Mr. President, and the 
administration writes the regulations to administer those laws. The 
Endangered Species Act over the last three decades has been touted by 
some to be the most progressive environmental law in our Nation, and 
clearly it has saved species of threatened and endangered plants, 
animals, fish.
  My State has been largely reshaped by it. Federal land use plans in 
my

[[Page S9207]]

State are much more prescriptive today and controlled by the very issue 
of the Endangered Species Act. But here, by a wink and by a nod, 
nothing happens. It is a river that you and I, Mr. President, for years 
have worked to pass legislation that would progressively clean it up 
and improve it, moving it back toward a time when it was a viable 
fishery on the east coast. But with the millions of pounds of sludge 
dumped daily into this river in the dark of night under a permit that 
has not been reissued since 1994--really, how long do we allow 
something like this to go on? How long do we allow the Army Corps of 
Engineers to continue to operate because it is in our best interest in 
the Nation's Capital, the city that ought to lead by example but can 
get away with a direct violation of the law or by ignoring the 
enforcement of the law?
  I do not think that should be the case. That is why I stand in the 
Chamber to dramatize this issue and to speak more clearly to it. While 
I believe the Endangered Species Act needs to be reformed, there is not 
any way I could write it to reform it that would justify this, nor 
would I try. Nor would any Senator vote for that kind of a reform.
  Yes, we would expect the Endangered Species Act to be more practical 
in its application, and, yes, we would want a more cooperative 
relationship with local communities of interest, but never would we 
ever tolerate the kind of an aggressive act that goes on in Washington 
on a daily basis, as I have said, oftentimes in the dark of night by 
this city and by our own agency, the Army Corps of Engineers, which is 
primarily responsible for the water treatment of this city.
  The application of the Endangered Species Act, as we see it, is good 
for the country and good for the West. It ought to be the same act and 
it ought to be enforced in the same way in our Nation's Capital. This 
is simply not being done.
  I am in the Chamber to speak to that issue and to recognize I have 
been involved with others in trying to bring about the conformity of 
the enforcement of the Endangered Species Act as we rebuild the Woodrow 
Wilson Bridge. This is one of many issues where there seems to be this 
attitude, well, if it is the Government doing it, somehow the 
Government can get away with it, and if it is in or near our Nation's 
Capital, where national security and the importance of the Congress are 
involved, then surely we can wink and nod and we can let the law be 
bypassed.
  I think not, Mr. President, and I think you agree with me.
  I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDENT pro tempore. The Senator from Wyoming, Mr. Thomas.

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