A federal appeals court reinstated an environmental group’s lawsuit Thursday that accuses Pacific Gas and Electric Co. of contaminating San Francisco and Humboldt bays with potentially dangerous chemicals in a wood preservative used on utility poles.
The suit said oil and wood waste from poles stored at the yards washed into the bays, damaging the environment and endangering wildlife and human health.
The environmental group wants a court to order PG&E to halt or clean up the discharges.
The Environmental Protection Agency decided many years ago not to require permits under that law for storm-water discharges.
But because the agency could have ordered permits, Seeborg said, the discharges were subject to the Clean Water Act and could not be challenged under the Resource Conservation law.
The Ninth U.S.
“The Clean Water Act does not require PG&E to get a permit for these discharges,” Judge Marsha Berzon said in the 3-0 ruling.
The EPA filed arguments supporting reinstatement of the suit under President Barack Obama, and argued on the side of the environmental group at the court’s hearing in February after President Trump took office.
Berzon said the group’s members had adequately asserted “their reduced ability to enjoy eating local seafood in Bay Area restaurants, observing birds and other wildlife from the air or from the wetlands around Oakland Airport, or sailing and swimming safely in San Francisco Bay, among other harms.” Jason Flanders, a lawyer for the Ecological Rights Foundation, said the ruling closed “what could have been a major loophole in pollution law.” Asked for comment, PG&E spokesman Matt Nauman said, “The health and safety of our customers and the public is our top priority.
We are aware of the court’s decision.