4 groups threaten to sue over Mirant’s P.G. landfill 

Posted: 8:17 pm Thu, November 19, 2009
By Liz Farmer
Daily Record Business Writer

Four environmental groups are threatening to sue the owners of a Prince George’s County landfill they say is dumping toxic chemicals into a creek feeding the Patuxent River watershed.

The groups claim mid-Atlantic subsidiaries of Mirant Corp. are violating the federal Clean Water Act by illegally discharging toxic pollutants at the company’s Brandywine Coal Combustion Waste Landfill. They say the pollutants are leaking through the landfill’s unlined disposal cells into Mataponi Creek, which flows through Merkle Wildlife Sanctuary, a wildlife refuge in the watershed.

“Contamination can impact a site up to 100 years after pollution first enters the water,” said Jennifer S. Peterson, an attorney for the Washington-based Environmental Integrity Project and co-counsel for the suit. “We want the pollution cleaned up.”

The Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Maryland School of Law is the other co-counsel for the Defenders of Wildlife, Sierra Club, Chesapeake Climate Action Network and Patuxent Riverkeeper.

The groups also claim Mirant is dumping chemicals it is not authorized by the Maryland Department of the Environment to discharge. That information came from Mirant’s 2007 application to renew its discharge permit, which noted arsenic, cadmium, beryllium and mercury as pollutants present in its discharge. Those pollutants were not authorized by the original MDE permit, Peterson said.

The groups also say Mirant has failed to submit a required annual report about how it will eliminate toxic discharges at Brandywine.

A spokeswoman for Mirant Mid-Atlantic said the company has received the intent to sue notice and its policy is not to comment on pending or ongoing litigation.

According to a recent U.S. Environmental Protection Agency report, disposal of coal combustion waste in unlined landfills poses high risks of cancer and diseases of the heart, liver, lung and stomach and can poison nearby ecosystems.

“Metals can be very toxic to fish and other wildlife even in small amounts,” said Peterson. “They can accumulate in bio-food chains and can be very difficult to remove.”

The groups want the landfill brought into full compliance with all environmental laws and want a stronger Clean Water Act permit. The suit will ask for injunctive relief and, if granted, Mirant will have to immediately stop the “illegal behavior,” Peterson said.

But that may not mean the landfill shuts down.

“How they comply is something they would have to work out,” she said. “That … is a little further down the road than where we’re at right now.”

Mirant is also the target of a state-led suit that claims the company’s fly ash landfill in Charles County violated water quality standards. Peterson said that issue is “very similar” to the Brandywine site.

The suit was filed in mid-2008 and litigation is slow going. The site is still accepting coal waste, Peterson said.