June, 09 2011, 09:57am EDT
For Immediate Release
Contact:
Daniel Patterson (520) 906-2159; Kirsten Stade (202) 265-7337
Cutbacks Cripple Arizona Air Pollution Enforcement
Despite Looming EPA Sanctions, County Signals Corporate Kid Glove Treatment
PHOENIX
Even as it faces federal sanctions for noncompliance with air quality standards, Maricopa County is laying off so many inspectors and other staff that it will no longer routinely issue fines for air pollution violations, according to an Air Quality Department (MCAQD) email posted today by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). This internal email was forwarded by the MCAQD Director to an unofficial advisory committee with representatives from industry, including the state Chamber of Commerce, contractors and gravel mines, among others.
With nearly 4 million people, Maricopa County is the biggest in Arizona and one of the largest counties in the U.S., including the megalopolis of metro Phoenix, with a bigger population than 23 states. In a May 27, 2011 email, MCAQD Director William (Bill) Wiley told his kitchen cabinet of corporate, government and non-profit advisors:
"Below is an email, I sent to County Air Quality employees yesterday. It has been a challenging time and we have now reduced our staff by over 20 positions this year. With the reductions in previous years we are now down over 100 positions in 2 years."
The loss of 100 positions would be a nearly 50% reduction in the MCADQ workforce which was listed as 156 employees earlier this year before the latest layoff. In his email to employees, Wiley ordered them to avoid taking enforcement action against polluters except as a last resort:
"Moving forward, we will shift our focus to creating a culture of Compliance Assurance. Compliance Assurance focuses on increasing the percentage of facilities operating in compliance by utilizing a variety of approaches. This may include outreach, business assistance, training, targeted inspections as well as enforcement. Enforcement should be both potent and effective but used as a final option when other efforts have failed."
"Director Wiley might as well have told Arizona's biggest polluters that his department has declared a permanent enforcement holiday," stated Southwest PEER Director Daniel Patterson, noting that industry could save substantial sums if it did not have to follow increasingly strict air quality controls to protect public health. "How do you encourage clean air compliance when there is no penalty for cheating?"
Earlier this year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found Maricopa County in violation of Clean Air Act standards. If MCAQD does not reduce pollution emissions it can face escalating sanctions, such as denial of federal transportation funding.
Wiley's "heads up" was delivered to an unofficial advisory committee comprised of several industry lobbyists and attorneys which meets every month in the MCAQD building but the meetings are not publicly noticed or open to the public. Making outside scrutiny more difficult, agency management even moved the meetings from the 5th floor to the 8th floor in the MCAQD office building so as to hold them in space rented by a private firm. In February, a local group requested an investigation from the Attorney General into alleged state Open Meeting law violations but the Attorney General declined to take action.
"Even if this arrangement is not illegal, this sort of clubby, closed door dealing on matters affecting public health and quality of life is bad practice," added Patterson. "Industry insiders should not be privy to information about departmental enforcement that is not available to everybody."
###
Read the MCAQD e-mail about layoffs and enforcement de-emphasis
Look at worsening air quality in Maricopa County
Note the total number of MCAQD employees
Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) is a national alliance of local state and federal resource professionals. PEER's environmental work is solely directed by the needs of its members. As a consequence, we have the distinct honor of serving resource professionals who daily cast profiles in courage in cubicles across the country.
LATEST NEWS
Biden Request Would Create 'Free-Flowing' Arms Pipeline to Israel
The request would remove most conditions on Israel's use of a U.S. weapons stash, including a requirement that it only use surplus or obsolete weapons and a cap on how much the U.S. can spend resupplying the stash.
Nov 26, 2023
President Joe Biden has requested that Congress to lift most of the restrictions on Israel's access to a U.S. stockpile of weapons in the country, The Intercept reported Saturday.
The request came in the administration's supplemental budget request to the U.S. Senate, sent October 20. It concerns the War Reserve Stockpile Allies-Israel (WRSA-I) that the U.S. has stored in Israel since the 1980s for its own use in a potential conflict in the region. The U.S. allows Israel to access the stockpile under certain conditions, but Biden's request would remove most of these conditions, including a requirement that Israel only use surplus or obsolete weapons and a cap on how much the U.S. can spend resupplying the stash.
"The President's emergency supplemental funding request would essentially create a free-flowing pipeline to provide any defense articles to Israel by the simple act of placing them in the WRSA-I stockpile, or other stockpiles intended for Israel," Josh Paul, a former State Department official who resigned over U.S. arm transfers to Israel in the midst of its bombardment of Gaza, told The Intercept.
"The Biden administration's supplemental budget request would further undermine oversight and accountability even as U.S. support enables an Israeli campaign that has killed thousands of children."
The news comes in the midst of a four-day cease-fire between Israel and Hamas, which has given journalists and humanitarian organizations a moment to assess the extent of the death and destruction unleashed by Israel in Gaza since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking around 240 hostages. In retaliation, the Israeli military has killed more than 14,800 people in Gaza, around 10,000 of them women and children. That means the number of women and children killed in Gaza in less than two months is more than double the number confirmed killed in Ukraine in two years of fighting with Russia, The New York Times concluded Saturday. One of the reasons for the high civilian toll, the Times said, is Israel's use of 2,000-pound, U.S.-made bombs in a densely populated Gaza Strip.
Despite this, Biden's request would allow Israel to access all weapons from the WRSA-I, not just excess or obsolete ones, something that could hurt U.S. preparedness, Paul told The Intercept. The request would also remove a requirement that Israel provide concessions to the U.S. in exchange for accessing the weapons, lift the $200 million per year restocking cap, and shorten a requirement that the government inform Congress 30 days ahead of a weapons transfer under "extraordinary" circumstances.
"The Biden administration's supplemental budget request would further undermine oversight and accountability even as U.S. support enables an Israeli campaign that has killed thousands of children," John Ramming Chappell, a legal fellow with the Center for Civilians in Conflict, told The Intercept.
The U.S. typically provides Israel with $3.8 billion in military aid every year, more than it sends to any other nation, according to Al Jazeera. The House has already approved additional aid this year to the tune of $14.3 billion.
The Intercept story came the day after Biden seemed open to the idea of putting conditions on military aid to Israel while answering questions from reporters in Nantucket.
"I think that's a worthwhile thought, but I don't think if I started off with that we would have gotten where we are today," Biden said, as HuffPost reported. "We have to take this a piece at a time."
On the campaign trail in 2020, Biden said the idea of putting conditions on aid to Israel was "absolutely outrageous." But the administration's seemingly unconditional support for Israel as it carried out its siege, bombardment, and invasion of Gaza has led to backlash among progressives, who have marched for a cease-fire and carried out direct actions in several major cities. A Reuters/Ipsos poll released on November 15 found that 68% of the U.S. public backed a cease-fire.
In an appearance on NBC's Meet the Press on Sunday, National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan did not rule out the idea that Biden would sign legislation putting conditions on military aid to Israel, though he said currently what was proving effective was behind-doors diplomacy with Israel and Arab nations.
"He is going to continue to focus on what is going to generate results," Sullivan said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Delayed But Not Denied: 2nd Hamas-Israeli Prisoner Swap Goes Through
"After a delay, obstacles to release of prisoners were overcome through Qatari-Egyptian contacts with both sides," a Qatari spokesperson said.
Nov 25, 2023
Despite an initial delay, the second round of hostages were released by Hamas on Saturday night.
The group included 13 Israelis and four foreign nationals believed to be Thai, Middle East Eyereported. Israel also began to release 39 Palestinian prisoners in exchange as the second day of a four-day cease-fire concluded.
"After a delay, obstacles to release of prisoners were overcome through Qatari-Egyptian contacts with both sides," Majed Al Ansari, a spokesperson for Qatar's foreign ministry, tweeted, adding that the hostages were transferred to the International Committee of the Red Cross.
The Israeli military confirmed to The Associated Press that the hostages reached Israel after midnight local time. The hostages included seven children and six women, the office of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said. One of the hostages, a young girl named Emily Hand, was previously believed dead by her father.
The swap appeared to be in danger earlier in the day when Hamas said that Israel had not allowed enough aid to enter northern Gaza, which has taken the brunt of the Israeli military's force since October 7, when Hamas attacked Israel, killing 1,200 and taking around 240 hostages. Israel has since killed more than 14,800 Palestinians in Gaza in its response. The two sides have agreed to a four-day cease-fire beginning Friday that will see a total of 50 Hamas-held hostages and 150 Israeli-held Palestinians released.
In explaining the delay, Hamas also said that Israel had not released enough long-serving prisoners.
"Civilians should not be pawns in a deadly standoff between warring parties who flout basic principles of humanity."
"This is putting the deal in danger," said Osama Hamdan, a senior Hamas official in Beirut, as AP reported.
Sari Bashi, the program director of Human Rights Watch, criticized both sides for the delay.
"Hamas is obligated to release hostages, whether or not aid enters Gaza," Bashi tweeted. "The Israeli government is obligated to supply Gaza with aid, whether or not hostages are released. Civilians should not be pawns in a deadly standoff between warring parties who flout basic principles of humanity."
However, Egypt, Qatar, and Hamas later said everything had been resolved and the exchange would go forward, according to AP, sparking great relief from the hostages' friends and families.
"I was very nervous when I heard about the delay. I thought something would happen," Zohar, a classmate of 18-year-old Israeli hostage Noga Weiss, told Channel 13 TV, as AP reported. "It was a great relief when I saw her."
Egypt had also said earlier in the day that it had received "positive signals" from both sides about a possible extension of the cease-fire, Reuters reported. Netanyahu had previously said the pause would extend one day for every extra 10 hostages that Hamas releases.
Hamas said it expected Israel to release six women and 33 teenage boys on the second day of exchanges, AP reported.
One of the prisoners released Saturday was Shorouq Dwayyat, the Palestinian woman who had been held in an Israeli jail the longest, Middle East Eye reported. Dwayyat was first arrested eight years ago when she was 18. Israel claimed she stabbed a settler, which her family denies.
"We send a message to our people in Gaza that we stand by your side and support you," Duwiyat said upon returning home, as AP reported.
Another woman released by Israel was Israa Jaabis, who was arrested in 2015 with burns covering half her body, according to Middle East Eye. Jaabis' family said that she was burned when a defective cylinder of cooking gas ignited near a checkpoint, while Israel accused her of attempting a bombing. Israeli forces raided Jaabis' home ahead of her release, forcing any journalists or distant relatives to leave.
Police also raided the home of Marah Bkeer before her release Friday, Reuters reported.
"There is no real joy, even this little joy we feel as we wait," her monther, Sawsan Bkeer, told reporters. "We are still afraid to feel happy."
Dwayyat told reporters that Israel had threatened to re-arrest the released prisoners if they celebrated, according to Middle East Eye.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Scientists Relaunch Campaign to Save the Endangered Axolotl
The Adoptaxolotl 2024 campaign invites donors to adopt a threatened salamander for around 600 pesos, or $35.
Nov 25, 2023
Ecologists in Mexico relaunched a campaign Thursday to protect the axolotl, an iconic Mexican underwater salamander threatened with extinction.
The Adoptaxolotl 2024 campaign invites donors to adopt a threatened salamander for around 600 pesos, or $35, The Associated Press reported. A virtual adoption comes with regular updates on the amphibian's well-being. Axolotl lovers can also buy one of the salamanders a dinner or purchase axolotl-themed t-shirts, bandannas, and mugs.
"The axolotl is at critical risk of extinction," Luis Zambrano González, who works at the Biology Institute of Mexico's National Autonomous University (UNAM), told the UNAM Gazette. "For this reason we need to understand its conservation as something that all of society is responsible for, to care for its habitat and develop strategies to allow people to relate more to these animals."
"Thanks to these surveys we realized that the amphibian is on the edge of extinction, and if we don't do something we will soon lose it in the wild."
There are 18 different species of axolotls in Mexico, and nearly all of them are considered critically endangered, according to AP. The salamander is famous for its unique appearance, as well as its ability to grow back severed limbs. Scientists believe that studying the axolotls' ability may help them to repair tissue damage or aid in cancer recovery, but they will have to work fast to uncover their secrets.
Zambrano told the UNAM Gazette that axolotl numbers had rapidly declined in surveys: from 6,000 per square kilometer in 1998 to 36 in 2014, a decline of 99.5% in less than two decades.
"Thanks to these surveys we realized that the amphibian is on the edge of extinction, and if we don't do something we will soon lose it in the wild," Zambrano said.
The campaign, which is organized by UNAM scientists, raised more than 450,000 pesos, or $26,300, last year to launch a captive breeding program and to restore habitat in the ancient canals of the southern Mexico City district of Xochimilco, according to AP.
The scientists said that the salamanders in Xochimilco were in danger because their habitat was menaced by urbanization, pollution, and invasive species, the UNAM Gazette reported.
"There is no more time for Xochimilco," Zambrano told AP.
So far, researchers have restored 40 floating islands and 5.5 kilometers of canal, created 36 biodiversity refuges, and installed 71 filters to improve water quality, the UNAM Gazette reported.
Axolotls are also susceptible to the chrytid fungus behind mass amphibian deaths worldwide, according to AP.
Scientists say more research is needed to truly know the extent of the damage to the axolotls' habitat and the risk to the all of the species.
Alejandro Calzada, who works for the Mexican government monitoring less popular species of axolotl, told AP that his team of nine is not able to monitor all the streams in Mexico City or the country as a whole.
"What I know is that we have to work urgently," Calzada said.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular