Back in 2006, when I was Ohio EPA, I worked on Senate Bill 265 which was the first major overhaul in air pollution regulation in Ohio in over a decade. One component of S.B. 265 was to provide authority to Ohio EPA to regulate air toxics.
Prior to enactment of S.B. 265, Ohio EPA
With the passage of Ohio’s budget bill (House Bill 59), the State has enacted tougher regulation of oil & gas related wastes. Beginning January 1, 2014, a person is prohibited from storing, recycling, treating, processing, or disposing of brine or other waste substances associated with oil & gas exploration and production without a permit or
Performing appropriate environmental due diligence prior to acquisition of any industrial or commercial property is a necessity. Due to expansive liability under environmental statutes, most notably CERCLA (i.e. Superfund), a purchaser of contaminated property can be held liable for all cleanup costs regardless of whether the purchaser caused the contamination or knew it was present.
A task force assigned to review the ASTM standard for Phase I environmental assessments has completed its review of the current standard. It has sent its recommendations to U.S. EPA who is expected to accept the recommendations.
Any revisions to the ASTM standard for Phase I has big implications. Phase I reports are a requirement of the
Often times businesses only worry about performing due diligence (Phase Is and Phase IIs) when they are purchasing a building, factory or land. In my experience, many tenants never think about the fact that they could inherit liability for pre-existing contamination just by leasing property. However, tenants, particularly those that are leasing industrial space, should
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On March 6th the Clean Ohio Council approved major changes to the Clean Ohio program. The changes are now effective and will govern the remaining $15 million in funding that was set aside in the last budget.
After the $15 million has been exhausted, JobsOhio has indicated it will launch a new $43 million per
Last year the Kasich Administration announced that it was phasing out the Clean Ohio brownfield grant program. The Clean Ohio program,which had been in existence for over a decade, had provided approximately $37.5 million per year in incentives for cleanup and redevelopment of brownfields.
Last May, the Administration allocated a final $15 million toward traditional
Across the country more local governments are attempting to pass their own ordinances regulating or even prohibiting natural gas drilling in their jurisdictions. Under home rule principals, the typical rule of thumb is that local ordinances are preempted if the state has a comprehensive regulatory scheme for that area. However, various state courts have reached
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On December 6, 2012, the Ohio Supreme Court issued a rare opinion pertaining to the proper calculation of civil penalties in the context of an environmental enforcement action. The decision has serious ramifications for any company that is required to perform stack tests to demonstrate compliance with air emission standards. It also may impact any
An article in the Akron Beacon Journal discusses a study by Kent State University regarding the disposal of flow back water from natural gas fracking in deep wells in Ohio. Flow back water is the water that comes back up from fracking a natural gas well. The flow back water is considered wastewater.
A prior