An appeal of a federal court’s ruling in a case over water pollution fines at a West Virginia chicken farm is dead.This represents a rare victory over the NGO/EPA combine, who work together to get judicial enforcement of laws that may, or may not actually exist, using the simple expedient of having the NGOs sue the EPA, and the EPA doing it's damnedest to lose to them in court. It didn't work in this case because there was another party with standing, support from another interest group (the farm bureau), money for lawyers, and a judge who interpreted the law as written, not as desired by the NGOs.
The five environmental groups that intervened in support of the federal Environmental Protection Agency – Potomac Riverkeeper, West Virginia Rivers Coalition, Waterkeeper Alliance, Center for Food Safety, and Food and Water Watch – now have decided to withdraw their appeal. The groups asked the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit to dismiss their appeal late last week.
The move comes about a week after the Fourth Circuit granted the EPA’s motion to voluntarily dismiss its appeal. The appeal still could have moved forward if any of the five groups decided to go ahead without the government.
The groups said they were “deeply disappointed” in the agency’s decision. “In the suit, the facility admitted it discharges pollutants into a tributary to the Potomac River,” said Susan Kraham, senior staff attorney at the Columbia Environmental Law Clinic.
Lois Alt, the owner of Eight is Enough farms, sued the EPA in 2012 over its demand that Alt obtain a Clean Water Act permit or face fines of $37,500 a day.
The agency claimed that the Alts were violating the CWA at their farm in the Old Fields section of Hardy County, in West Virginia’s Eastern Panhandle, because of litter and manure washing from the farm by rain.
Last October, Judge John Preston Bailey, for the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia, ruled Alt did not need to apply for a CWA permit.
Bailey issued the ruling despite the agency withdrawing its demand that Alt apply for a CWA permit after she sued.
The judge rejected the EPA’s contention that the CWA regulates ordinary stormwater runoff from the farmyard, or non-production areas, at large livestock or poultry farms. Bailey noted that the decision would benefit thousands of farmers.
We've been following this case for a long time now:
Chicken Rancher Sues EPA
EPA to Farm Bureau: Butt Out!
EPA Drops Chicken Shit Law Suit
Farmers Win Right To Help Fellow in Fight With EPA
Chicken Shit Farmer Wants Day In Court
Chesapeake Farmers Fear Regulation
Man Bites Dog
CBF Denied Entry into Shitty Court Case
CBF Challanges Exclusion from Chicken Shit Law Suit
EPA Loses Chicken Shit Law Suit
Farmers Crow Over Victory in Chicken Shit Law Suit
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