Posted on January 30, 2017
By Eric Heisig, Cleveland.com
Cuyahoga County has asked a federal judge to rule against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in a lawsuit over the Corps’ plans to dump dredged materials from the Cleveland Harbor into Lake Erie.
The county in an amicus, or “friend-of-the-court,” brief Thursday said the county has an interest in keeping the lake’s water safe for its residents. It says the Army Corps’ position that it is trying to save federal taxpayer money, but would foist the cost onto the local or state governments, is flawed.
“It is logically irreconcilable for the Federal government to set a standard for dredged material disposal that threatens the health of a sensitive water body and to simultaneously impose a burdensome remedial program on the local citizens to remediate and protect that same water body,” the brief says.
(You can read the brief here or at the bottom of this story.)
The Army Corps’ duty to dredge is the subject of two lawsuits pending before Senior U.S. District Judge Donald Nugent, as the dispute affected dredging for 2015 and 2016. At issue is the dredging of a six-mile shipping channel, the last mile of which serves the ArcelorMittal Steel mill.
The state of Ohio alleges the Army Corps is violating federal law by asking that a “non-federal partner” pay to dredge the sixth mile and dispose of the sediment. The Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has said dumping dredged sediment would be harmful to the lake’s ecosystem.
The Army Corps contends the shipping channel’s sediment is not toxic.
The state and the Army Corps have each asked Nugent to rule in their favor in the 2015 case.
Nugent forced the Army Corps to dredge in 2015.
The Army Corps delayed dredging in 2016, which is the subject of the second lawsuit.
The county, in its brief, wrote that it “urges this Court to bar the Corps from circumventing the will of Congress and imperiling the economy of this region, the safety of its citizens, and the continued improvement of Lake Erie by its capricious action and regulatory manipulation.”
ArcelorMittal also filed an amicus brief this month asking Nugent to rule against the Army Corps.
Source: cleveland.com
