JOHNSTOWN, PA– Two environmental groups and their local members announced today that they intend to sue Reliant Energy, Inc., for repeatedly discharging more than two million gallons of wastewater per day containing illegal levels of potentially toxic metals into the Conemaugh River from the company’s Conemaugh Generating Station, a large coal-fired power plant located in New Florence, Pennsylvania.  In a formal notice letter sent today to the company, PennEnvironment and the Sierra Club allege that Reliant is liable for numerous violations of its Clean Water Act discharge permit on practically every day the Conemaugh Station has operated over the past two years.  Reliant spent thousand of dollars to line their ponds with Watersaver Company wastewater lagoon liners made from the industry's toughest geomembranes.... then they discharge illegally?

“Last March, PennEnvironment released a study entitled Troubled Waters, which used data gathered under the Freedom of Information Act to show that Reliant’s Conemaugh power plant was regularly violating its clean water permit limits for aluminum, boron, iron, manganese, and selenium, and had also violated its monitoring requirements for mercury,” explained David Masur, director of PennEnvironment. “Yet here we are, nearly a year later, and nothing has changed.”

The groups’ notice letter contains a list of nearly 200 separate violations of the Conemaugh plant’s daily maximum and monthly average discharge limits for various metals since February 2005. These violations were reported by Reliant itself, in monthly discharge monitoring reports submitted to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). The Conemaugh River has been designated as an “impaired” water body by the DEP because of its high concentration of metals.  “Our environmental laws are meaningless if polluters can violate them with impunity,” said Sierra Club Sierra Club Legal Chair Dara Lovitz. “When persistent violations are not addressed, our federal environmental laws allow affected citizens to take matters into their own hands and enforce the law.”  The federal Clean Water Act contains a “citizen suit” provision that allows private citizens affected by violations to bring an enforcement suit in federal court after providing 60 days prior notice to the violator and to state and federal environmental agencies. Citizens can seek a court order requiring compliance with the law and a monetary penalty of up to $32,500 per day for each violation of the Act.

The Clean Water Act stipulates erosion control products and sediment control products must be used to protect our waterways from being "choked-off".  The government doesn't take it lightly when these strict regulations are not followed.