A 15-year legal fight to curb toxic wastewater to protect drinking water

A legal victory decades in the making, the EPA will require modern wastewater treatment at all remaining coal-fired plants

Thomas Cmar, Coal Program, Earthjustice: “This is really just the leading edge of what will become a much broader wave of power plants seeking to extract as much of an advantage as they can out of the handouts that the Trump EPA gave them.”

Pursuant to Section 509(b)(1) of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1369(b)(1), and Federal Rule of Appellate Procedure 15(a), Clean Water Action, Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc., Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc., Center for Biological Diversity, PennEnvironment, Inc., Chesapeake Climate Action Network, and Prairie Rivers Network hereby petition this Court for review of the final action of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and Andrew Wheeler entitled Steam Electric Reconsideration Rule, which was published in the Federal Register at 85 Fed. Reg. 64,650 on October 13, 2020 (Attachment 1).

Earthjustice files a new lawsuit challenging the Trump administration's giveaway to the coal power industry.

Proposed Rule Would Allow Utilities To Continue To Use Outdated, Ineffective Water Treatment

Trump Administration announces plan to requirements for treating toxic wastewater from coal-fired power plants

EPA must update guidelines for reducing pollution from steam-electric power plants

Steam-electric power plants generate most of the electricity used in our nation and, sadly, an unhealthy share of the pollution discharged into our nation’s waters. To control this pollution, the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq., empowers the Environmental Protection Agency to promulgate and enforce rules known as “effluent limitation guidelines” or “ELGs.”

To find out why the agency would take an action so contrary to the public’s interest, Earthjustice filed a FOIA request on behalf of the coalition in April 2017, asking the EPA to provide the documents that led to the decision to allow more toxic coal waste dumping in America’s waterways. Four months later, despite acknowledging that it has hundreds, if not thousands, of documents that are responsive to the request, the EPA has produced only one document—and much of that document was inked out before releasing.

A coalition of environmental and public health advocates filed suit to compel the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to stop withholding critical information about the Trump administration’s swift attempt to roll back safeguards against America’s leading source of toxic water pollution: coal power plants.

First, EPA abruptly abandoned protections to prevent toxics from being dumped into our waterways—now, the agency is illegally keeping information from the public

EPA is, accordingly, postponing the associated compliance dates in the 2015 Rule. In particular, EPA is postponing the earliest compliance dates for the new, more stringent, BAT effluent limitations and PSES for flue gas desulfurization (‘‘FGD’’) wastewater and bottom ash transport water in the 2015 Rule for a period of two years.

Revised rule postpones compliance deadlines for critical pollution safeguards

EPA holds public hearing on proposal to postpone compliance on wastewater regulations for coal-fired powerplants

Plaintiffs Clean Water Action, Environmental Integrity Project, Sierra Club, Waterkeeper Alliance, Inc., PennEnvironment, Inc., Chesapeake Climate Action Network, Physicians for Social Responsibility, Chesapeake, Inc., and Prairie Rivers Network assert violations of the Administrative Procedure Act by defendants E. Scott Pruitt, Administrator of the United States Environmental Protection Agency, and the United States Environmental Protection Agency, for EPA’s April 25, 2017 notice purporting to indefinitely stay certain compliance deadlines in EPA’s November 2015 final rule revising the Clean Water Act Effluent Limitation Guidelines for power plants. See Postponement of Certain Compliance Dates for Effluent Limitations Guidelines and Standards for the Steam ElectricPower Generating Point Source Category, 82 Fed. Reg. 19,005 (Apr. 25, 2017)

Discharges from coal plants to public waters increase cancer and brain damage risk

Scott Pruitt is committed to preserving and resurrecting dirty coal plants, in part by gutting environmental protections under the Clean Water Act.