James Cato and Evan Clark: Pa.’s rivers have a plastics problem, and nobody is willing to act
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All Pennsylvanians have the right to clean water. But there is a plastics problem in our rivers, and nobody has been willing to address it properly.
We know who is currently causing the problem, and we know how to fix it. And, there is precedent to take action — watershed watchdogs in Texas and South Carolina have successfully sued plastics polluters for dumping. In Pennsylvania, the DEP is allowing polluters to release large volumes of plastic into our public streams — those same streams local families use for fishing, boating and swimming. It’s time for the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) to take action before it’s too late.
For the past three years, our nonprofit organizations, Mountain Watershed Association (MWA) and Three Rivers Waterkeeper (3RWK), have surveyed the rivers around Pittsburgh for pre-production plastic pellets, or “nurdles,” using a floating trawl net. Nurdles are the building blocks for most plastic products — considered microplastics, as they are less than 5mm in size, about the size of a notch on a Lego brick. We’ve focused much of our surveys along the Ohio River — above and below the Shell cracker plant plastics manufacturing facility.
When we began surveying in 2020, the plant was not complete, and our goal was to establish a baseline for nurdles in the Ohio River. Despite the plant’s inactivity, we found that nurdles were already present in our waterways. Fast forward a few years, and we found a substantial increase in plastics in the trawl in 2022 — but these nurdles looked different than the regular plastics captured. These new pellets were smaller than the typical nurdles our organizations had documented, closer in size to poppy seeds than lentils.
Over time, we determined that the flow of nurdles was coming from an Ohio River tributary, Raccoon Creek, located approximately a half-mile downstream of the Shell cracker plant’s main outfall. Raccoon Creek collects discharged waters from multiple industries, including BASF, a chemical company, and Styropek, owned by the largest EPS (expandable polystyrene) producer in the American continent.
We tracked the trail of floating plastic pollution to an outfall managed by Styropek, and reported the dumping to the DEP . The federal Clean Water Act states that outfalls cannot emit solids or garbage. And yet the DEP has not taken actions resulting in a penalty or required a schedule to compliance.
This is a troubling precedent to set. Styropek has admitted to releasing plastics, and it has taken steps to remedy the situation. Nevertheless, discharges persist more than half a year later, and only a non-penalty notice of violation has been issued. Enforcement should be simple — issue a monetary penalty and create a schedule for compliance.
Sampling efforts continue to detect flows of the tiny plastic beads. Without enforcement, polluters are in no rush to remedy ongoing pollution into our waterways. We know what will happen — beads will wind up in the mouths and digestive systems of fish and turtles, pile on the riverbanks and stick to plants. In addition to impacting wildlife that mistakes them as edible eggs, nurdles “sponge” toxins over time, becoming increasingly unsafe to consume.
DEP’s lack of environmental enforcement here does not bode well for those concerned about the Shell cracker plant just upriver. The plant is the largest plastic producer in the eastern United States — the potential for more plastics pollution in our future is enormous. Local residents deserve to know that they will be held accountable.
We urge our regulators to take plastic pollution in our waterways seriously and use the Clean Water Act and Pennsylvania’s Clean Stream Law to stop and prevent further pollution into our waterways. Issuing notices of violation without meaningful penalties does not stop ongoing pollution. Pennsylvania residents deserve better.
The DEP must launch a rapid investigation of reports of Clean Water Act violations and impose meaningful monetary penalties for Clean Water Law violations. They need to lay out clear timelines demanding compliance with the clean water act, and engage in open and transparent communication with community members. Without swift, meaningful action against polluters, we cannot have drinkable, swimmable or fishable waters.
James Cato is a regional organizer for the Mountain Watershed Association. Evan Clark is waterkeeper for Three Rivers Waterkeeper.