Litigation

With comments due shortly on Cal/EPA's Environmental Justice (EJ) Action Plan, environmentalists and industry officials remain split over how the agency should define and address the controversial concepts of cumulative impacts and precautionary approaches.

Cal/EPA will use the comments, which are due Jan. 3, and data from its not-yet initiated pilot projects to craft a working definition of the two controversial concepts.

Environmentalists are considering fresh legal action against EPA arguing that a proposed air regulation for a category of waste incinerators falls far short of a court-ordered agreement.

Earthjustice and Sierra Club say they may go back to court under the existing consent decree, or file a new lawsuit, to try and force a more stringent standard should EPA finalize what they consider a weak maximum achievable control technology (MACT) requirements for the last remaining category of hazardous waste incinerators to be regulated by the agency's air toxics program.

A federal court has rejected a novel legal challenge to a controversial plan backed by EPA that would allow a trust of liable parties to discharge radioactive water from a Superfund site into a local sewer system, concluding that the challenge violates Superfund's bar on judicial review of cleanup decisions.

Developers may appeal a landmark California appellate decision that could be the first in the nation to excuse a state from considering cost when setting permit limits for stormwater runoff, attorneys familiar with the case say.

Attorneys representing developers say the decision could force industry to install costly technology to meet strict California water quality standards governing stormwater runoff -- instead of relying on best management practices (BMPs) used in the past that may or may not have ensured compliance with the standards.