Riverkeeper Uses CWA to Challenge Improper CERCLA cleanup

In an interesting coalescence of two different statutes, a company redeveloping a water front Superfund site in Oregon has been sued for violating the Clean Water Act in the process of that redevelopment. According to this article from the Oregon Daily News, Columbia Riverkeepers has sued Chinook Ventures for illegally dumping pollutants it is handling as part of the remediation of a former Reynolds Aluminum manufacturing facility on the Columbia River, using the citizen suit provisions of the Clean Water Act. Chinook is redeveloping the site, which is listed under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), to make into a private port facility. There's not much more out there on the case, but it is noteworthy, insofar as one would assume that a company conducting a CERCLA cleanup would have swarms of environmental consultants supervising the work to limit liability and ensure the work is completed to the Act's standards.

Suit Filed to Stop Nuclear Expansion in Georgia

Yesterday, lawyers and students at the Emory University Turner Environmental Law Clinic filed suit in the DC Circuit on behalf of a coalition of environmental groups to reverse a federal Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) decision from earlier this year. The NRC granted Georgia Power, a subsidiary of Southern Company, an early site permit (ESP) to build new reactors at its Plant Vogtle facility near Atlanta. The petition contends that: "the NRC violated the Atomic Energy Act, 42 U.S.C. § 201 1 et seq., the National Environmental Policy Act [(NEPA)], 42 U.S.C. § 4321 et seq., the Administrative Procedure Act, 52 U.S.C. § 701 et seq.," and their implementing regulations. Petitioners seek review and reversal of the permit(s) issued for the site, as well as an injunction, presumably against any construction that may commence as a result of the permits.

The coalition includes the Center for a Sustainable Coast, Savannah Riverkeeper, Southern Alliance for Clean Energy (SACE) (a former client of mine), Georgia Women’s Action for New Directions (WAND), and the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League.

The joint press release can be read here. And the complaint here.

Georgia Power and Southern Company are heavily coal-dependent, conservative on energy issues and extremely powerful, and will be formidable foes. Their websites, like those of other power companies these days, highlight their interest in energy efficiency and other forms of sustainable energy. But they enjoy an unusual amount of political and market power in their home states based on longstanding monopoly production of (fossil fuel fired) power, and are interested in keeping it that way. That means advocating projects such as nuclear expansion, "clean" coal gasification (with dubious environmental benefit), and carbon sequestration (the risks surrounding which it seeks to have industry indemnified from, as a way to keep coal viable if federal GHG regulation materializes), and resisting state- or federal-level energy efficiency or renewable energy portfolio standards. They have also opposed rigorous cap-and trade legislation--in part through lobbying groups like the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity. And, in a development that caused a huge brouhaha in Georgia last year (that you can read about here), they pushed a "construction work in progress" (CWIP) bill through the Georgia Legislature that means they will be paid for new power plants even while they are being built. This shifts all of the risks that expensive projects they undertake--such as, um, building nuclear reactors--might not be completed/economically viable in the end because of rising fuel prices, federal climate legislation, or community opposition onto the shoulders of Georgia ratepayers.

Coverage of the suit from the Augusta Chronicle can be seen here.