Agenda - 09-21-2010 - 4g - Laserfiche WebLink

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15 ST CLAIR G4UNTY, AL: No Clean Water in No Business Creek In the early 1980's, St. Clair County Commissioner Stan Batemon reports that a company was allowed to operate a restaurant grease "recycling" operation in his county. Several thousands of gallons of grease from hundreds of restaurants in Alabama and Georgia were deposited there. The company was originally allowed to dig open trenches on their property and to fill these open trenches with raw untreated restaurant grease with only a storm water run-off permit as required by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM). The company later dug three large lakes and proceeded to dump the untreated grease into the lakes in an attempt to allow the water and solids to be removed by gravity and then to "skim off" the vegetable oil material and sell it for unknown products. As Commissioner Batemon said, "this was a VERY big operation." Several complaints were submitted to ADEM about bad odor and flies from this facility. Commissioner Batemon stated that the County has no home rule authority and could not respond in any legal way to the complaints. After several years, the facility was over-whelmed with more grease than they could process and eventually went out-of- business. The odor and fly problem got worse and the lakes began to fill up with rain water until they eventually over-flowed into a drainage ditch that spilled into an unnamed tributary and then into No-Business Creek. The result was a complete removal of the dissolved oxygen from the creek which caused an approximately 10- mile fish kill, as well as other aquatic damage t6turtles, snails, etc. There was also a large swamp area where beavers, muskrats, and other wildlife were coated with the grease. Commissioner Batemon said that ADEM claimed no responsibility for the disaster but "the citizens that were damaged cried out for some one to help." The pollution, smells and flies devalued their property; recreational fishing and contact water sports such as swimming and water skiing were affected, also. The State Department of Conservation and Wildlife documented the damages and it was their reports to ADEM that caused further studies to be done by ADEM. The County had no authority or responsibility to help, but ended up as the only government entity for the people to call on. Since the problem was on private property, the County had to get a judge to condemn the property and give ownership to the County to allow the County to help clean up the pits. The County then filed suit against the out-of-state and out-of-business owner. The result cost St. Clair County over $500,000 in legal fees and actual clean-up cost. ADEM claimed no responsibility based on the limited "nexus" between the pits and No-Business Creek. Prior to the Supreme Court decisions in 2001 and 2006, the discharge of grease from the overflowing lakes to the ditch and ultimately to No- Business Creek would almost certainly have been subject to ADEM authority under the Clean Water Act. Stronger, clearer Clean Water Act authority in this case would have saved St. Clair County over one half million dollars. ADEM's reference to a limited "nexus" apparently stems from the agency's interpretation (or misinterpretation) of the showing of "significant nexus" seemingly required to establish CWA jurisdiction after Rapanos. It is no wonder ADEM balked. In late 2007, in another Alabama pollution case, the Eleventh Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals threw out the criminal conviction of an infamous polluter of an Alabama stream on grounds that the "significant nexus" had not been sufficiently well established. The Alabama trial judge who had presided over the jury trial was so "perplexed" and disturbed by the confused state of the law post-Rapanos that he washed his hands of the case when it was remanded to him for further consideration. Had Congress stepped in after the 2001 SWANCC decision and clearly defined "waters of the United States" to include those waters covered by longstanding EPA and Corps regulations, ADEM and EPA might have enforced the Clean Water Act in this case, and saved St. Clair County over one half million dollars. Mathews County VA: An Example far Qther Counties "Widely acknowledged as the Pearl of the Chesapeake, Mathews is a beautiful, vibrant County with a rich cultural, political and economic heritage. With its 250 miles of waterfront, shoreline management and access to the water are priorities." MathewsCounfywehsite 12 Clean Water For All: County Leaders Speak Out for Clean Water Matthews County website