FARGO — Government regulators have some powerful tools at their disposal to crack down on violators of environmental laws, namely fines, lawsuits and other formal enforcement actions.

North Dakota officials, however, let these tools sit untouched at the bottom of the toolbox the vast majority of the time.

In the past three years, 325 facilities around the state have broken longstanding federal environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act, the Clean Water Act and the Safe Drinking Water Act. In just seven of those cases, state officials took formal enforcement action.

That works out to 2 percent of violations being met with formal enforcement. That's the lowest percentage of the 43 states for which complete data is available, according to a Forum analysis of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency records. Nationally, 16 percent of violations see formal enforcement, and it's 24 percent in Minnesota.

In North Dakota, Minnesota and most other states, the EPA has delegated authority to state officials to make sure facilities like wastewater lagoons, drinking water systems and power plants follow federal environmental laws.

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North Dakota officials say they'd rather see lawbreaking facilities, many of which are taxpayer funded, spend money on remedying violations as opposed to paying a state-imposed fine. Meanwhile, environmental advocates say state regulators need to do more than just issue nominal fines in only the most egregious cases.

"I think if the penalties were larger they would be more of a deterrent than this kind of slap-on-the-wrist thing," said Mark Trechock, former director of the Dakota Resource Council.

In recent years, the explosion of oil and natural gas drilling has been accompanied by a bevy of spills and illegal dumping in western North Dakota. But enforcement related to those incidents typically falls under state law rather than federal laws like the Clean Air Act and Clean Water Act, said Dave Glatt, chief of the North Dakota Environmental Health Section.

When dealing with a federal environmental rule violation, Glatt said, the first goal for North Dakota regulators is to bring the facility into compliance with the law. If that can be done without taking formal enforcement action, it's preferred, he said.

"Our philosophy on that is, you know, things break - no fault of anybody. And so before we jump right into fining them, again, we want to make sure everything's in compliance," he said.

'Philosophically opposed'

North Dakota's patient approach to enforcement hasn't gone unnoticed by the feds.

In a 2011 report calling for better state enforcement of federal environmental laws, the EPA's Office of Inspector General said North Dakota's deficiencies in this regard were because the state was "philosophically opposed to taking enforcement action."

In an email, EPA spokesman George Hull said that in North Dakota, the EPA and the state share the duty of enforcing environmental laws and often work together to do so.

"In its oversight role, if EPA identifies any concerns with North Dakota's performance of its responsibilities, EPA works with the State to remedy the problem," he wrote, not elaborating on what concerns the EPA may have with the state's enforcement style.

Wayde Schafer, the lone paid staffer at the Sierra Club's state chapter, said he senses an anti-EPA sentiment in North Dakota - a resentment that a federal agency is meddling in state affairs. But for Schafer, having an overarching regulatory body like the EPA is critical to protecting the environment.

"Water and air don't stop at state boundaries," he said. "You can't have just individual states just doing whatever they want."In North Dakota, over 2,200 facilities must abide by federal environmental laws. The most recent EPA records show that 114 facilities are not in compliance with these laws.

Of those facilities, 15 have broken the law to the point that the EPA describes them as significant violators. Eight of the 15 have been out of compliance for at least three years, and in that time none has faced formal enforcement.

All eight facilities are drinking water systems, mostly in small towns like Cathay. Since 2011, the central North Dakota town of Cathay, population 43, has exceeded the maximum levels allowed for chlorine twice and has tested positive for bacteria four times, according to EPA records. Phone messages left for Cathay's mayor, Cathy Wiedrich, were not returned.

Glatt said it's often small towns with slim budgets that chronically struggle to follow Safe Drinking Water Act regulations. "The smaller the system, you know, the tougher it is for them to hire qualified (system) operators," he said. "That makes it a challenge for us to work with them to make sure they get the appropriate samples in and that their water is safe to drink."

Greg Wavra, who manages the state's drinking water program, said violations typically happen when the person in charge of a drinking water system misses a required water-quality test or doesn't follow paperwork rules. This includes sending notices to residents explaining test results, he said.Sometimes, like in Cathay's case, the violations are directly related to public health. A recent example of this occurred in the McLean-Sheridan Water District.

About 260 residents in the district get their water from the city of Washburn, north of Bismarck. Disinfectants are used to treat the water, which comes from the Missouri River, and those disinfectants can combine with organic material to make certain byproducts, Wavra said.

The water system, which had been abiding the law for at least two years, tested high in September for one of those byproducts, known as haloacetic acid, which can heighten the risk of cancer through long-term exposure, according to the EPA.

And last month, the system exceeded the limit for another byproduct called trihalomethane, which, through long-term exposure, can lead to liver, kidney and central nervous system problems as well as an increased risk of cancer, the EPA said.

Water district manager Lynn Oberg said the district, which has not been fined or threatened with one, is working with the state to comply with the regulations. He said Washburn is switching to a new treatment process, which he expects will prevent similar issues in the future.

Wavra said the water is safe to drink in the McLean-Sheridan Water District, in Cathay and throughout the rest of North Dakota.

'Personal relationships'

Minnesota regulators, like those in North Dakota, say their main goal is to ensure that facilities follow the law. But more frequently than North Dakota, Minnesota resorts to formal enforcement action when federal environmental laws are broken, EPA records show.

When a violation harms or threatens to harm the environment or public health, Minnesota typically takes punitive action, which more often than not involves a fine, said Katie Koelfgen, compliance and enforcement manager at the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency. "We think penalties do deter future violations," she said.

Unlike North Dakota, Minnesota has a legal team at the MPCA that handles enforcement matters. In rare cases when criminal charges are filed, the MPCA will seek the EPA's help or the case will be outsourced to a county attorney, Koelfgen said.

Tami Norgard, a Fargo attorney who practices environmental law, said the smaller number of regulated facilities in North Dakota allows state regulators to work with facilities to try to resolve violations more so than their Minnesota counterparts, who she believes are quicker to pull the trigger on enforcement.

Norgard said North Dakota regulators put a high value on their relationships with regulated entities. "In Minnesota, I think you don't quite have the level of personal relationships, and I think that the regulators in Minnesota maybe would not sit down and take the time to talk through the solutions as much as North Dakota would," she said.

In the past three years, facilities in North Dakota have incurred a total of about $1.8 million in penalties. The Tesoro refinery in Mandan received the largest one ($1.1 million), and the smallest one ($7,100) went to American Crystal Sugar in Hillsboro.

"Sometimes the fines that these companies pay are fairly small in relation to the amount of money that they make," said James Grijalva, a University of North Dakota law professor.Grijalva said North Dakota's unaggressive approach to environmental enforcement is related to the priority state officials put on attracting new businesses. Officials "don't want to send the message that we're too hard on environmental pollution," which, he said, goes hand-in-hand with economic development.

Grijalva said he thinks the state can strike a balance between economic development and environmental protection. But he said that requires regulators to uphold the law so companies know they have to follow it.