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Home Builders Fined: Remember the Clean Water Act?

By Christine Stapleton | Wednesday, June 11, 2008, 02:33 PM


Four of the nation’s largest homebuilders will pay $4.3 million for allegedly violating the Clean Water Act by failing to obtain and/or comply with permits that prevent stormwater run-off pollution at construction sites around the country.

Inspectors from the U.S. EPA “discovered a pattern of failures” by the builders “that could or did result in discharges of pollutants,” and “a pattern of failures to comply with the requirements of applicable permits…”

Why should we care about storm water runoff? Because it drains directly into our sewers which directly discharge into streams, creeks and other waterways, like the Lake Worth Lagoon - without ANY treatment.

That’s right. When it rains, the pesticides, fertilizer and Storm drain pollution.jpg grass killer you sprayed on your yard last weekend trickles down your driveway to the gutter, into the sewer and straight to the nearest body of water - a canal, a lake, a pond, the ocean or intracoastal waterway. It is not cleaned AT ALL.

When builders fail to get permits at construction sites all kinds of nasty stuff can get into our waterways including sediment, concrete washout, paint, used oil, pesticides, solvents and other debris.

Centex Homes, the nation’s third largest home builder, agreed to the largest settlement $1.48 million. Among the violations: portable toilets were located directly on top of storm drain inlets” without plans to prevent spills from entering the storm drain.

The EPA complaint listed 681 Centex construction sites around the country - 68 in Florida, including these local sites: Bayhill Estates in West Palm Beach; Canterbury Place in Jupiter; Casellina in Wellington; Oakmont Estates in Wellington; Sea Plum in Jupiter; and Sunterra in West Palm Beach.

Pulte Homes, the nation’s fourth largest builder, has agreed to pay $877,000. Seventy-one sites are in Florida, including Mallory Creek and Pinewood Lakes in Palm Beach county and Lakes at Tradition in St. Lucie county.

Richmond Home Builders, the nation’s 10th largest home builder with 97 sites in Florida, has agreed to pay $795,000.

KB Homes, with 532 construction sites nationwide (97 in Florida) has agreed to pay $1.18.

(It’s not just home builders being cited for storm-water run-off violations. Home Depot, the nation’s largest home improvement retailer, agreed to pay a $1.3 million penalty earlier this year after the EPA alleged violations at 30 construction sites in 28 states where new Home Depot stores were being built.)

“Today’s settlements set a new bar for the home building industry,” said Granta Y. Nakayama, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance.

I hope so but I’m not optimistic. These are huge builders. They have teams of lawyers, engineers, planners, architects, contractors, site managers and workers. I find it hard to believe that someone did not know they were violating the Clean Water Act.

What do you think?