May – 2019 – Synergy Environmental Inc

EPA Dips Toes Into PFAS Drinking Water

Posted on May 22, 2019

Manatt Phelps & Phillips LLP
Jeffrey J. Davidson, David L. McGrath and Craig A. Moyer

April 30, 2019

On April 25, 2019, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released its Draft Interim Recommendations to Address Groundwater Contaminated with Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonate (PFOS) for public review and comment. The comment period ends on June 10, 2019.

PFOA and PFOS are two substances within the much larger group of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), man-made chemicals that historically were widely used and presently are used across the country every day in a wide array of consumer and industrial products. Water resources known to have been contaminated by PFOA and PFOS are associated with releases from manufacturing sites, industrial sites, fire/crash training areas, and industrial or municipal waste sites where products are disposed of or applied. PFAS are highly resistant to degradation and are extremely persistent in the environment as well as in organisms, including human beings.

Pennsylvania Prospective Purchasers of Contaminated Property and Their Administrative Records

Posted on May 22, 2019

Greenberg Traurig LLP
David G. Mandelbaum

May 1, 2019

On April 26, 2019, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (EHB) voided two amendments to a prospective purchaser agreement (PPA) for the Bishop Tube Site entered into in 2007 and 2010. Del. Riverkeeper Network v. Dep’t of Envt’l Prot’n, EHB Dkt. No. 2018-020-L (Constitution Drive Partners). The underlying PPA was dated 2005. The Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) failed to issue public notices of the amendments until 2017, and did not respond to comments received until 2018, by which point conditions had changed. DEP failed to make an administrative record that took adequate account of the delay and the changed circumstances.

Prospective purchaser agreements are tools used under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund), 42 U.S.C. §§ 9601-75, and the Pennsylvania Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act (HSCA), 35 Pa. Code §§ 6020.101 to .1305, to enable parties looking to acquire a contaminated site to do so with known cleanup obligations. The EPA website addresses PPAs and other tools generally here.

Environmental Groups Sue EPA to Develop Worst-Case Hazardous Substance Spill Rules

Posted on May 22, 2019

Hunton Andrews Kurth LLP
Timothy L. McHugh

May 9, 2019

In a lawsuit recently filed in the Southern District of New York, a group of environmental plaintiffs allege that, for nearly 30 years, the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has failed to develop worst-case hazardous substance discharge, or spill, regulations under Section 311(j)(5) of the Clean Water Act (CWA). This suit comes on the heels of EPA’s June 2018 proposal not to develop a general hazardous substance spill program under CWA § 311(j)(1) (a provision related to the Spill Prevention, Control and Countermeasure (SPCC) Rule well known to industrial facilities storing oil) because of the many other programs EPA believes already regulate the prevention and containment of hazardous substance spills. That proposal is expected to be finalized in August 2019 under a 2016 consent decree in which EPA agreed to evaluate the need for general rules governing the prevention and containment of hazardous substance spills. The new lawsuit narrowly focuses on worst-case hazardous substance spills and the need for corresponding facility response plans.

Keystone XL Pipeline Litigation Takes A Turn On Heels Of President Trump’s New Presidential Permit

Posted on May 22, 2019

Squire Patton Boggs LLP
E. Nicki Hewell

May 10, 2019

The Keystone XL Pipeline is back in the spotlight. In the first quarter of 2019, the U.S. District Court for the District of Montana and the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit upheld the injunction prohibiting TransCanada Keystone Pipeline, LP and TransCanada Corporation (TransCanada) from beginning construction on the Keystone XL Pipeline. On March 29th, President Donald Trump issued a new cross-border permit that threatens to bypass the pending litigation. Most recently, on April 8th, the United States and TransCanada filed motions to dismiss the Ninth Circuit appeal and remand to the district court with instructions to dismiss for mootness.

These filings represent the most recent steps in a decade-long fight over this controversial pipeline.

The Keystone XL Pipeline

The Keystone XL Pipeline is the planned fourth phase of the Keystone Pipeline System, an oil pipeline system in Canada and the United States, which was commissioned in 2010. Phases 1-3 have already been completed and are online. The first phase went online in 2010, and the most recent phase (the Houston Lateral Pipeline) went online in 2017.