KMK Law Real Estate Blog

On December 1, 2009, U.S. EPA adopted new rules which establish the first national standards for the control of pollutants (sediment, turbidity and nutrients) discharged via stormwater from construction sites to surface waters.

U.S. EPA’s new rules will impact residential and commercial construction and development companies, as well as those entities involved in highway, street and bridge construction.  These entities are already required to obtain a stormwater discharge permit (usually from a state agency, but sometimes from U.S. EPA) and to employ certain control measures to manage stormwater discharges to surface water.

The US Green Building Council recently released its "Top Ten Pieces of Green Building Legislation in the 111th Congress."  Interestingly enough, only one of these pieces of legislation has actually been passed into law, and that is the often discussed American Reinvestment and Recovery Act (see our previous summary of that legislation).

In a decision that will affect many businesses with small emission sources, on February 2, 2010, a federal district magistrate for the U.S. District Court, in Sierra Club v. Christopher Korleski, Case No. 2:08-CV-865 (U.S. District Court, Ohio), ruled that Ohio’s New Source Review (NSR) exemption for minor emission sources was invalid.

On February 10, 2010, the Cincinnati City Counsel approved an ordinance to formally delay the effective date of the City’s new environmental justice ordinance until February 1, 2011.  Implementation and enforcement of the ordinance was delayed due to a lack of funding.  The ordinance will require new or expanding manufacturing facilities to obtain an environmental justice permit.

As of December 21, 2009, it will become more difficult to build a new manufacturing facility or expand an existing one in the City of Cincinnati.  The law which will take effect is the Cincinnati Environmental Justice Ordinance and is believed to be the only one of its kind in the United States.