{"id":2243,"date":"2011-11-22T16:29:46","date_gmt":"2011-11-22T22:29:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/?p=2243"},"modified":"2011-11-22T16:29:46","modified_gmt":"2011-11-22T22:29:46","slug":"epa-makes-secret-watch-list-public","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/22\/epa-makes-secret-watch-list-public\/","title":{"rendered":"EPA Makes Secret &#8216;Watch List&#8217; Public"},"content":{"rendered":"<div id=\"attachment_1463\"  class=\"wp-caption module image right\" style=\"max-width: 300px;\"><a class=\"fancybox\" title=\"A flaring event at the Javelina processing plant in Corpus Christi\" href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/javelina-june-2011.png\" rel=\"\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"size-medium wp-image-1463\" title=\"javelina june 2011\" src=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/javelina-june-2011-300x185.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"300\" height=\"185\" srcset=\"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/javelina-june-2011-300x185.png 300w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/javelina-june-2011-220x136.png 220w, https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/files\/2011\/11\/javelina-june-2011.png 454w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 300px) 100vw, 300px\" \/><\/a><p class=\"wp-media-credit\">Photo courtesy of Suzie Canales<\/p><p class=\"wp-caption-text\">A flaring event at the Javelina processing plant in Corpus Christi<\/p><\/div>\n<p>Earlier this month, StateImpact Texas, NPR and the Center for Public Integrity <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/2011\/11\/07\/stateimpact-npr-poisoned-places-a-special-investigative-report\/\">reported on a secret EPA &#8216;watch list&#8217;<\/a> that shows repeated violations of environmental laws in the country by industry. The list showed that even though many facilities throughout the country were violating the law, the EPA and state agencies weren&#8217;t enforcing those laws in a timely manner.<\/p>\n<p>Now the EPA has officially released the list <a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa-echo.gov\/echo\/echo_watch_list.html\">on its website<\/a>. As the Center for Public Integrity<a href=\"http:\/\/www.iwatchnews.org\/2011\/11\/22\/7481\/impact-epa-posts-secret-watch-list-includes-chronic-polluters\"> reports<\/a>, the EPA has gone one step further and published other watch lists including &#8220;serious or chronic violators of the\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/lawsregs\/laws\/cwa.html\">Clean Water Act<\/a>, governing the release of pollutants in waterways, and\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.epa.gov\/lawsregs\/laws\/rcra.html\">Resource Conservation and Recovery Act<\/a>, involving hazardous waste disposal.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What does this mean for environmental regulation and enforcement? Will the new information lead to more lawsuits and litigation against polluters?<!--more--><\/p>\n<p>The Center for Public Integrity found evidence that industry attorneys are already preparing for such an outcome:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>&#8220;We would expect environmental groups to scrutinize facilities on the list carefully as they consider potential citizen action suits,&#8221; wrote lawyers at Washington D.C. law firm Arnold &amp; Porter in\u00a0<a href=\"http:\/\/www.arnoldporter.com\/resources\/documents\/Advisory%20EPA_CAA_Watch_List.pdf\">an advisory to clients<\/a>. &#8220;The list may also provide fodder for plaintiffs&#8217; attorneys seeking to bring toxic tort suits.&#8221;\u00a0The lawyers, Jonathan Martel, Michael Daneker and Joel Gross, also speculated that energy extraction industries \u2014 oil, gas, coal and hydraulic fracturing \u2014 &#8220;might be especially prone to inclusion&#8221; on the Clean Air Act watch list.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>You can read all of our reporting on the EPA list and the effects of several chronic violators on communities in Texas <a href=\"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/tag\/poisoned-places\/\">on our toxic emissions topic page<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Earlier this month, StateImpact Texas, NPR and the Center for Public Integrity reported on a secret EPA &#8216;watch list&#8217; that shows repeated violations of environmental laws in the country by industry. The list showed that even though many facilities throughout the country were violating the law, the EPA and state agencies weren&#8217;t enforcing those laws [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":50,"featured_media":1463,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60],"tags":[83,39,33],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/50"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2243"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2250,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2243\/revisions\/2250"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/texas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}