Sierra Club Sues EPA over Schiller Station Permits

An environmental watchdog group has filed a petition in U.S. District Court in Boston to force the federal government to issue new water discharge permits for the Schiller Station coal-fired power plant in Portsmouth.

According to court documents, the Sierra Club and Our Children's Earth Foundation wants the EPA to issue new permits that take into account the newest federal water discharge standards for the Public Service of New Hampshire owned and operated facility and a second coal-fire power plant in Massachusetts.

The plaintiffs argue that the EPA issued National Permit Discharge Elimination System to Schiller Station and the Mount Tom coal-fire plant in Massachusetts that have since expired and were extended by 16 years.

"The expired NPDES Permits both are woefully out of date, and fail to contain effluent limitations as stringent as the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1251-1387, (the “CWA”), requires for such facilities," reads the environmental group's lawsuit.

The plaintiffs argue that the EPA's decision not to issue updated water discharge permits after the original ones expired 16 years ago has left the Piscataqua River at risk.

"The EPA’s prolonged failure to update the NPDES permits for the Coal Plants has impaired and will continue to impair the Plaintiffs’ and their members’ use and enjoyment of the Connecticut River in Massachusetts, and the Piscataqua River in New Hampshire for fishing, body contact water sports and other forms of recreation, wildlife observation, aesthetic enjoyment, educational study, and spiritual contemplation," the plaintiffs' lawsuit reads.

The plaintiffs also argue that they cannot inform and educate themselves about the two coal-fire power plants' water discharge performance until new permits are issued that reflect the requirements of the federal Clean Water Act that was approved by Congress in 1989.