Author: Goldberg Segalla

Nuclear power plant,
New York / Nuclear Power Plants
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Nuclear Option: New York Federal Judge Strikes Down Challenge to Power Plant Subsidies

On Tuesday, July 25, 2017, U.S. District Court Judge Valerie Caproni dismissed a challenge to New York’s plan to subsidize the state’s nuclear power plants. According to the Judge’s decision, the plan does not intrude upon federal jurisdiction over wholesale electricity markets and passes constitutional muster because it is rationally related to a legitimate state interest: the production of clean energy and the reduction of carbon emissions from the production of other energy.

A coalition of power generators and energy groups, including the Electric Power …

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Clean Water Act
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Don’t Spill the Nurdles! EPA Reaches Settlement with Two Plastic Manufacturers Over Pollution of the Los Angeles River and Permit Violations

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) recently announced that it reached an agreement with two Southern California plastic manufacturers over violations of the Clean Water Act.  In 2015, Western States Packaging Inc. (Western States) and Direct Pack Inc. (Direct Pack) were cited for violations relating to their use of plastic pellets, known as “nurdles,” at their manufacturing facilities in Southern California.  Nurdles are plastic beads about 1/5 of an inch in diameter that are used to make jars, bags and films.

During an inspection, …

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Agriculture
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Di-can’t-a? Three Midwestern States Act to Limit the Use of Dicamba

On July 14, 2017, Tennessee joined Arkansas and Missouri in limiting the use of dicamba. Dicamba is an herbicide used to combat broadleaf weeds that have developed resistance to glyphosate and other herbicides. The use of dicamba has increased significantly since the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) approved the use of dicamba on soybeans and cotton that are genetically modified to tolerate the chemical.

Older formulations of dicamba had been reported to drift after application and affect other crops not meant to be treated. …

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EPA
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EPA’s “Sham Recycling” Rule Partially Discarded by D.C. Circuit

On July 7, 2017, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia struck down portions of a 2015 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency final rule designed to limit “sham recycling” of hazard waste materials. See American Petroleum Institute v. Environmental Protection Agency, 2017 WL 2883867 (2017).

In 2015, EPA promulgated a final rule (Final Rule) under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) attempting to prevent “sham recycling.” The Final Rule came as a result of years of negotiation, and litigation. Yet, subsequent to …

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Clean Air Act
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Back to the Drawing Board for Clean Coal

Kemper County Power Generation Facility, the flagship “clean coal” project in rural eastern Mississippi, will rely on natural gas rather than coal to produce electricity. After years of delays and cost overruns totaling over $4 billion over the facility’s original budget of $2.9 billion, the facility’s coal gasifier project has been shuttered.

The Kemper facility had been central to the Obama administration’s energy plan and to the administration’s assertions that it was not anti-coal. However, the worsening situation prompted the Mississippi Public Service Commission to …

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Water Contamination
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Water Alert — PFAs Detected in North Carolina’s Cape Fear River Raise Immediate Concerns Over Safety of Community’s Drinking Water Supply

On June 20, 2017, the Chemours Company announced that it will now “capture, remove, and safely dispose of wastewater that contains the byproduct GenX,” from North Carolina’s Cape Fear River — a main supply source for the City of Wilmington’s drinking water.

The announcement last week comes on the heels of reports that the EPA is investigating whether Chemours complied with a 2009 order issued under the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA) that allowed DuPont (from which Chemours was spun-off) to produce GenX in its …

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Gas pipeline construction in Greece.
Pipeline
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Slow the Flow? U.S. District Court orders Army Corps of Engineers to Reconsider Environmental Analysis of the Dakota Access Pipeline

The Dakota Access Pipeline (DAPL) is a pipeline built by Energy Transfer Partners to move oil from western North Dakota to Illinois, where it can be shipped to the Gulf Coast and points beyond. The Army Corps of Engineers approved the completion of the DAPL on February 8, 2017. The DAPL began operating June 1, 2017 and has the capacity to move half of North Dakota’s daily oil production.

In the summer of 2016, the Standing Rock and Cheyenne River Sioux Tribes began efforts to …

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EPA
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EPA Postpones Effective Date for TSCA Nanomaterial Reporting Rule and Releases Draft Guidance for Public Comment

On January 12, 2017, the EPA finalized a rule on nanomaterial reporting and record keeping under Section 8(a) of the Toxic Substances Control Act (TSCA). See 82 Fed. Reg. 3641. The rule, called Chemical Substances When Manufactured or Processed as Nanoscale Materials; TSCA Reporting and Recordkeeping Requirements (Final Rule), was in development for years and was set to go into effect on May 12, 2017. Id.

The Final Rule establishes reporting and recordkeeping requirements for certain chemical substances when they are manufactured or processed …

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Offshore Drilling
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NMFS and NOAA Solicit Comments Regarding Offshore Seismic Surveys; Environmental Groups Enthusiastically Oblige

On June 6, 2017, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) took the next step towards oil and gas drilling offshore of the east coast of the United States. The agencies filed a notice of takes of marine mammals incidental to geophysical surveys in the Atlantic Ocean and opened the subject for public comment.

Three geophysical mapping companies have sought permits to conduct surveys off the east coast. The surveys would involve the use of air-guns, hydrophones, and …

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Landfill with blue sky and cumulus clouds
EPA / Missouri
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Where There’s Fire, There’s Not Always Smoke. EPA Finds No Radioactive Contamination at Homes Near Suburban St. Louis Landfill

The Environmental Protection Agency declared a landfill near St. Louis, Missouri containing Manhattan Project waste has not contaminated nearby homes with radioactive materials.

Approximately 40 years ago, waste materials from the Manhattan Project were buried in the West Lake Landfill in Bridgeton, a St. Louis suburb. The discovery of an underground fire at the nearby Bridgeton Landfill has led to the lawsuits alleging that radioactive materials could be polluting nearby residential neighborhoods.

In November 2016, Robbin and Mike Dailey filed suit in state court against …

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