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Charleston Gazette
Copyright 2002
Monday, March 25, 2002
HEADLINE: Municipalities ask to be included in state lawsuit
BRIAN BOWLING
DAILY MAIL STAFF
Three associations representing municipalities and their sewage boards
are asking U.S. District Judge Joseph Goodwin to let them join a lawsuit
over a state stream protection regulation.
Lisa Dooley, executive director of the West Virginia Municipal League,
said the public sewage systems are concerned about losing a provision in
the regulation that they spent more than a year negotiating.
As originally written, the regulation would have made it difficult, if
not impossible, for municipalities to build or expand their sewage
systems, she said.
"It would have just kept us from improving our facilities," she said.
The Municipal League, the West Virginia Municipal Water Quality
Association and the Association of Metropolitan Sewerage Agencies are
the three groups asking to intervene as defendants in the case. The main
defendant is the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
The plaintiffs in the case - 15 environmental groups and 10 individuals
- argue that the regulation is inconsistent with the U.S. Clean Water
Act. The lawsuit filed in January asks Goodwin to overturn EPA's
approval of the state regulation.
Known as an "anti-degradation" regulation, the law is supposed to ensure
that development along a stream doesn't unnecessarily worsen its water
quality.
The protection mechanism is a review process where the builder or
developer would have to show that a proposed project would either not
increase pollution in the stream or that the increase is offset by the
economic and other social benefits of the project.
In the lawsuit, however, the groups contend that the state Legislature
added so many exemptions to the review process that it rendered the
regulation meaningless. Consequently, the state regulation was so
different from federal law that the EPA's approval of the state
regulation was "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion and
otherwise contrary to law," the lawsuit alleges.
Dooley said municipalities negotiated an exemption for public sewers
systems from the review process when they are able to show that the
project will reduce the overall pollutants in the stream.
"We're the guys out here cleaning up the pollution," she said.
Tim Stranko, an attorney for the Morgantown Utility Board, said the
municipalities' main worry is that the process would give people who
object to having to hook up to public sewage systems another way to
delay or kill public sewer projects.
"Without a doubt, it would make it more expensive to get a sewer project
approved, and it would make it more onerous," Stranko said.
Joe Lovett, the lead attorney for the plaintiffs, refused to comment on
why they want to remove the exemption for public sewer systems from the
regulation.
Writer Brian Bowling can be reached at 348-4842 or by e-mail at
brianbowling@dailymail.com.
The Baltimore Sun
Copyright 2002 @ The Baltimore Sun Company