Penalty Upheld Against New York City For Violating Clean Water Act

By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS
Published: June 15, 2006

A federal appeals court has upheld a penalty against New York City for violating the Clean Water Act by adding silt to an upstate trout stream that carries part of the city's water supply. Ruling on Tuesday in a lawsuit filed by environmentalists six years ago, a three-judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit sent the case back to the trial judge to recalculate the original $5.7 million penalty, which lawyers said could be trimmed by about $500,000 after
a correction in its calculation. The appeals court said that the City Department of Environmental Protection needed a special pollution permit because it added so much silt to the Esopus Creek at the eastern edge of the Catskills. Ian Michaels, a spokesman for the department, said the agency believed that it was inappropriate to apply Clean Water Act rules intended to regulate sewage and industrial waste water to the conveyance of untreated, natural drinking water.