The Natural Resources Council of Maine is accusing Maine Department of Environmental Protection officials of allowing an industry group to have undue influence on a recent report that calls for a re-evaluation of hazardous waste recycling programs.
But a DEP spokeswoman said the department’s doors are open to all stakeholders. And she insisted that the department is committed to improving — not terminating — programs to recycle products containing mercury and other hazardous materials.
NRCM said that internal documents obtained from the DEP show that senior staff met 10 times during the past year with representatives of Thermostat Recycling Corp. to discuss Maine’s program that aims to keep old thermostats containing mercury from ending up in a landfill. Thermostat Recycling Corp. is a nonprofit formed by manufacturers of thermostats in order to recover the devices for disposal.
NRCM suggested that the industry’s fingerprints are visible on the DEP’s report — released in late December — recommending that the Legislature re-evaluate the state’s so-called “product stewardship” laws. Those laws require manufacturers to take back or help pay to recycle thermostats, compact fluorescent lightbulbs, televisions and other electronic devices containing mercury or other hazardous materials.
“Our review shows that senior DEP officials have maintained an open door policy for out-of-state manufacturers interested in undermining Maine’s product stewardship programs and a closed door policy to all other stakeholders — including interested lawmakers, internal DEP staff who manage the programs, municipalities and public interest organizations,” Abby King, NRCM’s product stewardship advocate, said in a statement.
But DEP spokeswoman Samantha DePoy-Warren said some of those meetings were to discuss other issues, including reports of potential fraud within the take-back programs and other environmental projects.
“Our door is always open,” DePoy-Warren said on Wednesday. “This organization happened to walk through it. They are partners in this recycling effort.”
NRCM filed a Freedom of Access request not long after the department released its latest report to the Legislature on the status of the product take-back programs. But rather than clarify the programs’ status, the report seems to have generated more tension — and confusion — about the future of the recycling efforts required by the department.
The department determined that the five existing product stewardship programs have removed slightly more than 400 pounds of mercury from the environment over the past decade but at a cost of $2.5 million — or more than $6,000 a pound. Mercury is a well-known neurotoxin that can cause serious health problems in humans, especially young children and pregnant women.
“Based on the conclusions drawn from this review, the department recommends re-evaluation of the way that these programs are managed and whether certain programs, as currently administered, are appropriate; taking into consideration relatively low recycle rates of product categories, accounting for innovations which have resulted in manufacturer process changes, and allowing the opportunity for private sector leaders to maintain management of program operations and outcomes,” reads the DEP’s report to the Legislature’s Committee on the Environment and Natural Resources.
The report goes on to say that the department plans to develop draft legislation in 2013 “aimed at sun-setting select product categories where appropriate.”
Environmental and health groups seized on such language to conclude that the DEP planned to propose that lawmakers terminate some programs. That prompted the DEP’s bureau director in charge of the product stewardship programs to issue a clarifying memo that while the department is recommending re-evaluation of the programs, “the ultimate goal of the department is to improve the effectiveness of the programs.”
But NRCM insisted this week that the documentation suggests that department staff who have handled the programs for years were not consulted during the review. Instead, the organization alleges that that DEP Commissioner Patricia Aho and other senior officials crafted the report based largely on industry feedback and without considering the benefits of reducing mercury pollution.
“We feel the report presents such a flawed and biased view of product stewardship that the DEP should be embarrassed to even have it on its website,” King said in an interview.
DePoy-Warren said that, to her knowledge, NRCM has never been denied a meeting with department staff.
“We are focused on moving these programs forward and improving the recycling rates,” she said. “So we feel this criticism is undeserved.”
Here’s some deserved criticism: DEP allows dentistry to use amalgam seperators that do not work, and does not monitor or regulate their use. Maine dentists are the largest polluters of Maine’s waters with mercury. When fillings are removed or replaced, the grindings are suctioned and since amalgam seperators are there it gives the impression that it is being seperated from the waste stream when it really isn’t. Appearances aren’t everything in this case. Where are the extracted teeth containing amalgam being disposed of? Landfills? Thermostats? Really? While amalgam from dental offices all over the state are polluting with mercury? Amalgams are 50% mercury.
Dentistry has been allowed to pollute long enough. Time to end their priveleged status and require them to comply along with everyone else.
The DEP has been aware of this for some time. people like myself have had the door shut in our face by the DEP when attempting to bring these facts to light. Dentistry is wealthy and powerful, with lawyers and lobbyists. The DEP has looked the other way for them.
How about an investigation into why?
What about the switch from incandescent to fluorescent lights and the accompanying increase of mercury in the environment? We lose quality and heat for the benefit of adding to the pollution of the earth by saving a few mis-informed kilowatt-hours. Dr. Hill (UMO) once estimated that this transition represented the equivalent of one or two nuclear plants in terms of the difference in heat potential. How could the switch in the type of lights have passed the scrutiny of our “regulators”? The answer was conservation and heat reclamation and not serving the mercury industry. I wonder if we can still buy incandescent lights in Canada?
I don’t know about you but I turn on lights for light not heat. Electric heat is not very good especially in the summer when you may be using AC to cool a house that. I think Dr. Hill is a proponent of nuclear power so his arguments may be slanted that way.
But incandescents put out most of their energy as heat rather than light. ironically a problem for commercial or office facilities that swith to fluorescent lighting.
This DEP is in bed w/industry and will not rule in favor of people, only corporations. Oh, wait, that’s right, the Supreme Court says corporations are people. This DEP, headed by the chief lobbyist for the gas and oil industry will always reward her corporate cronies.
Not sure what DEP has in mind, but recyling/reclamation of CFLs should be expanded to long bulb fluorescents as well.