If you are still wondering whether municipalities are serious about planning for climate change, the Boston Redevelopment Authority’s announcement this week of its new draft Guidelines for the inclusion of planning for climate change in its Article 80 review (basically the Boston local version of NEPA) might convince you. While the Guidelines are fairly broad, the accompanying Climate Change Resiliency and Preparedness Checklist gets way down into the weeds.… More
Monthly Archives: October 2013
The Answer, My Friend, Is Not Blowin’ In The Wind: Waste From CAFO Ventilation Fans Does Not Require an NPDES Permit
Earlier this year, in her aptly named post “What the Cluck?”, Patricia Finn Braddock, noted that a state court in North Carolina had held that wastes from poultry farms, blown by ventilators from confinement houses and then washed into waters of the United States with stormwater flow, are subject to NPDES permit requirements. Well, in a decision issued on October 23, Judge John Preston Bailey,… More
EPA’s Latest Public-Private Partnership? Enforcement
As the EPA budget continues to get squeezed by the ongoing sequester and a GOP-controlled House that is, shall we say, less than sympathetic to EPA’s mission, it is not surprising that EPA would try to shift more of the enforcement burden to citizen groups. According to a report in Greenwire yesterday, that is precisely what EPA has in mind.
Greenwire quotes Cynthia Giles, EPA’s enforcement czar as saying that “we have far too much noncompliance,… More
California Takes Pioneering Role on Energy Storage Policy
I noted in July that emerging energy storage technologies have received increasing attention from policymakers as an essential element for improving the efficiency and reliability of the electric grid. Adequate storage is also seen as important for facilitating the integration of larger quantities of renewable generation. At that time I posited that the states would likely precede the federal government in advancing policies to encourage the development and adoption of storage technologies.… More
When Does the Statute of Limitations Run on CERCLA Claims? No, Never? Well, Hardly Ever
In State of New York v. Next Millenium Realty, decided earlier this week, the 2nd Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed the wisdom of Gilbert and Sullivan. It is very difficult to blow the statute of limitations in CERCLA cases.
The question before the court was whether New York could recover from PRPs the cost of a granulated activated carbon (GAC) system and an air stripper tower,… More
Is the Absolute Pollution Exclusion Absolute? It Depends on Which State Answers the Question
The battle over the scope of the absolute pollution exclusion in general liability policies continues to be fought in the context of defective drywall manufactured in China. An earlier blog entry discussed a Virginia court that had concluded that there was no coverage for defective drywall claims, rejecting decisions from a number of states that had ruled that the absolute pollution exclusion should be limited to industrial pollution claims, … More
Sale of a Usable Waste Defense — Another Instance of the Unstated Rule of CERCLA Liability
Extending its string of CERCLA PCB losses in the Midwest, NCR Corporation was recently found liable for contribution based on its sale of waste scrap from its manufacture of carbonless copy paper in Michigan. In Georgia-Pacific v. NCR Corporation, the federal court rejected NCR’s claim that it had merely had sold a useful product when it sold waste resulting from its carbonless copy paper. Instead,… More