EPA's Final Cooling Water Rule Faces Likely Suit From Environmentalists

摘要

EPA's just-finalized Clean Water Act (CWA) rule for cooling water intake structures at power plants and other industrial facilities includes several changes aimed at softening the rule's burdens on the utility sector, prompting criticism from environmentalists who are weighing litigation over the regulation for being too weak. "What happened is EPA punted back to the states," Reed Super, a lawyer for the environmental group Riverkeeper, said during a May 20 conference call, faulting the rule for allowing flexibility to reduce harm to aquatic life from the structures. Instead, EPA is advocating a case-by-case process that will defer heavily to state water permit writers. "It essentially codified the practices that have not worked in the last four decades," he added.