South Carolina citizen’s are getting fed up with DHEC’s slack enforcement of rules and regulations.
After all, it’s extremely hard to go up against a State run Agency when it’s in bed with the local businesses it’s tasked with regulating.
Here are just 4 incidents that many SC citizens aren’t even aware of:
But being soft on serious violators is part of the agency’s unspoken culture, said Jerry Paul, a retired upper level DHEC health licensing official.
- DHEC in 1985 found dangerous amounts of lead in the drinking water of Richland County’s Franklin Park neighborhood. But it didn’t get the lead removed until 2005, when the residents already had lead in their blood.
- Not until earlier this year did DHEC post signs at rivers to warn residents of the dangers of eating mercury-laced fish at hundreds of fishing spots across the state. DHEC knew the health threat had been expanding since the early 1990s and had put notices out to the media.
- For years, DHEC kept records secret that showed the magnitude of a radiation leak from a lowlevel nuclear waste dump in Barnwell County. DHEC had long acknowledged a leak. But at the landfill operator’s request, it withheld details, not even telling lawmakers last year as they debated whether to close the facility to the nation. State Attorney General Henry McMaster scolded DHEC for failing to produce the records.
- DHEC failed to closely monitor a Columbia sewer plant it knew had malfunctioned. Later, the plant was found spilling partially sewage into the popular Saluda River. Swimmers and waders complained of nausea and ear, eye, nose and throat infections. Some kayakers and canoers say they fell ill. DHEC waited six days to take water samples and seven days to notify the public. The agency says it and federal officials are investigating. Columbia environmental lawyer Bob Guild said “the community is watching” DHEC to see how much it fines the utility and how it explains what he says is a slowness to act. The agency’s water bureau chief David Wilson said last week DHEC could have been, if not faster, at least more thorough in notifying the public.
* via The State: DHEC under fire
This post is one of several found in: Government, Health, South Carolina
