November 14, 2005. Alabama Circuit Judge Joel Laird
ruled that the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM) illegally
issued a water pollution discharge permit to HarGal Mining Partnership for a
gold mine on Terrapin Creek in Cleburne County, Alabama.
Under Alabama law, high quality waters can be
degraded only when the permittee demonstrates that the proposed discharge is
necessary for "important economic or social development." As shown by testimony
in this case, ADEM automatically accepts unsupported claims from permit
applicants that their pollution is necessary for important economic or social
development. ADEM has no standards or guidelines by which to make an agency
decision as to whether the pollution actually is "important."
Judge Laird ruled that this lack of objective
standards for determining what is or is not "important" is illegal. "Absent
reviewable criteria in promulgated rules or enacted statutes governing the
determination of important social or economic development, NPDES Permit No.
AL0070793 is void."
Judge Laird also ruled that the Alabama
Environmental Management Commission, which oversees ADEM and hears all
administrative appeals from ADEM decisions, acted illegally (1) by failing to
consider the objections filed by Wild South and the Friends of Terrapin Creek
and (2) by failing to include findings of fact and conclusions of law in its
order regarding claims by Friends of terrapin Creek involving violations of
water quality standards for metals.
Wild South was represented by WildLaw, and Friends
of Terrapin Creek was represented by David Ludder of the Legal Environmental
Assistance Foundation in Tallahassee, Florida.
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