PORTLAND, Ore. — August 4, 2014 — For the first time in its history, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must disclose the amount of pollutants its dams send into waterways in a groundbreaking legal settlement that could have broad implications for the corps’ hundreds of dams nationwide.
The corps announced in a settlement Monday that it will immediately notify the conservation group that filed the lawsuit of any oil spills among its eight dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers in Oregon and Washington.
The corps also will apply to the Environmental Protection Agency for pollution permits, something it has never done for the dams on the Columbia and Snake rivers.
The settlement filed in U.S. District Court in Portland ends the year-old consolidated lawsuit by the conservation group Columbia Riverkeeper, which said the corps violated the Clean Water Act with unmonitored, unpermitted oil discharges from the eight hydroelectric dams.
No one outside the corps knows how much pollution is flushed into waterways every day. The agency doesn’t have to track it, and before Monday no one with sufficient authority compelled them to do so.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at The Seattle Times