The West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection’s Division of Air Quality (DAQ) has made the draft of its new General Permit G80-A available for public comment. The permit will regulate “Prevention and Control of Air Pollution in regard to the Construction, Modification, Relocation, Administrative Update and Operation of Natural Gas Production, Compressor and/or Dehydration Facilities,”…
In a press release on January 27, 2015, the Interior Department and Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (“BOEM”) announced their draft strategy for an offshore oil and gas leasing program that will be finalized from 2017 to 2022. The draft plan is a work in progress, however; it is still subject to public comment and to date has been informed by more than 500,000 comments.
An oil and gas operator maintains a well on a vacant parcel near I-90 in Lake County. Access to the well site is by a private roadway that needs constant repairs. To facilitate repairs, the site owner and the well operator maintain piles of concrete and asphalt debris on the site.
Leroy Township advised the site owner and operator that its zoning resolution prohibits the on-site…
The Sierra Club and other anti-coal groups filed THREE lawsuits against USEPA on January 7, 2015 in federal courts in Kentucky and West Virginia.
Two of the actions, one in each state, allege that EPA has not acted on petitions submitted by the Plaintiffs several years ago to withdraw EPA approval of the State NPDES programs. See Kentuckians for the Commonwealth v. McCarthy, No.…
The U.S. District Court in Indianapolis closed a chapter in a long-running environmental case on January 15 when it refused to reconsider its grant of summary judgment issued last March in favor of the Federal Highway Administration and the Indiana Department of Transportation’s approval of the I–69 expansion project. The expansion of the existing I-69 across southwest Indiana is intended to…
“Threatened” Listing Would Create Fewer Burdens for Maintaining Existing Pipelines and Utility Lines
Northern long-eared bats live throughout the Eastern and Midwestern United States. The bat’s population has declined in many areas due to the fungal disease white-nose syndrome (“WNS”). On October 2, 2013, the Fish and Wildlife Service (“FWS”) proposed to list the northern long-eared bat as…
Federal Clean Air Act Does Not Preempt StateCommon Law in Kentucky’s Latest Whiskey Case[i]
In November 2014, the Kentucky Court of Appeals addressed whether the federal Clean Air Act preempts state common law nuisance claims based on emissions of airborne pollutants. Brown-Forman Corporation and Heaven Hill Distilleries, Inc. operate whiskey distilleries in Kentucky. The whiskey production…
On Wednesday, January 14, 2015, the Obama administration announced plans to propose new regulations to reduce methane emissions from the oil and gas sector. The new rules will set standards for methane and volatile organic compounds (VOC) emissions from new and modified oil and gas production sources (under section 111(b) of the Clean Air Act), and natural gas process and transmission sources.…
PADEP has announced the release of the fourth in a series of ongoing reports detailing the effects of surface subsidence caused by underground mining in Pennsylvania. The report, prepared by the University of Pittsburgh, addresses the effects of mining in Armstrong, Beaver, Cambria, Clearfield, Elk, Greene, Indiana, Jefferson, Somerset and Washington counties. The report,…
On January 3, 2015, PADEP announced that it has issued a final technical guidance document summarizing how the department will oversee immediate responses and final remediation of releases of regulated substances. According to the notice, additional information may be obtained by contacting Randy Roush at 717-787-1566 or raroush@pa.gov. The guidance will eventually be posted with…
