Friday, January 4, 2013

Victory for VA???



In victory for Va., judge rules EPA can’t regulate storm water as pollutant By Corinne Reilly, Published: January 3 The Washington Posthttp://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/in-victory-for-va-judge-rules-epa-cant-regulate-storm-water-as-pollutant/2013/01/03/aee92fc2-5613-11e2-bf3e-76c0a789346f_story.html?wpisrc=nl_headlines

[Excerpted] The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency exceeded its authority in trying to regulate storm water as it would a pollutant, a federal judge in Alexandria ruled Thursday.


The decision, a victory for Fairfax County and Virginia Attorney General Ken Cuccinelli II (R), came six months after the county and state filed a lawsuit against the EPA over its attempt to regulate the amount of water flowing through Fairfax’s Accotink Creek watershed as a means of controlling sediment buildup....

Majia here: This is a perplexing story. What are the exact limits being set on what the EPA can regulate?

Its easy to see why the plaintiffs don't want the EPA regulating the VOLUME or AMOUNT of storm runoff.

However, a more signficant regulatory issue concerns the POLLUTANT LEVELS in the storm runoff.

A couple of days ago I reported that the EPA is failing to adequately test for the spread of chemicals from superfund sites flooded by Sandy here

So, what exactly is the EPA being banned from regulating by this ruling? Can the EPA still regulate storm runoff if it is contaminated?

Are they simply being banned from regulating VOLUME of runoff OR are they being banned from regulating runoff altogether, even when runoff is likely to contain pollutants?

The article is not clear. 

One thing is clear: This ruling is no victory for the people of VA if the EPA is being disallowed from regulating polluted storm runoff.


No comments:

Post a Comment

Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.