Dow Chemical Company (Dow) has agreed to pay a $100,000 civil penalty to settle a Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit that alleged Dow discharged pollutants in excess of standards in Dow's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit at its Midland, Michigan facility. In the settlement, Dow also agreed to make major improvements to the wastewater treatment system at its Midland plant to prevent future exceedances.
In 1995, the Public Interest Research Group of Michigan and several individuals filed a CWA citizen suit against Dow for alleged violations of Dow's NPDES permit. In the consent decree resolving the case, entered by the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan, the court stated that Dow violated the CWA by exceeding its permit limits for phosphorus, 2,4-dichlorophenoxyacetic acid, and 2,4,6-trichlorophenol. Under the consent decree, Dow must take a number of steps, including: (1) removal of historically accumulated solids from its tertiary treatment ponds and manage them on-site; (2) installation of a new filter press and a dryer to handle waste solids from its secondary clarifiers; and (3) installation of a trace organics removal system.
Dow recently settled another citizen suit for different CWA violations at the same facility. A published report indicates that the settlements require Dow to pay a total of $1 million in civil penalties and other payments and to implement improvements to its wastewater treatment system that will cost more than $30 million.
Public Interest Research Group of Michigan v. The Dow Chemical Co., 95-CV-73286 DT (E.D. Mich. Dec. 23, 1997).
This article was prepared by Kenneth C. Gold, a partner in our Environmental Department, and previously appeared in the May, 1998 edition of the Michigan Environmental Compliance Update, a monthly newsletter prepared by the Environmental Department and published by M. Lee Smith Publishers.