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NYS Department of Environmental Protection (DEC) Has Authority to Address the Pollution of New York Waters by Oil and Gas Producer Operating Across the Border in Pennsylvania/DEC’s Authority Not Demonstrated to Be Preempted by Federal Clean Water Act

The Fourth Department affirmed Supreme Court’s dismissal of a petition brought by an oil and gas producer seeking to prohibit the New York State Department of Environmental Protection (DEC) from enforcing consent orders which concern the pollution of Yeager Brook in the Allegany State Park.  The oil and gas producer is operating across the border in Pennsylvania on land owned by the US Forest Service.  The court held that the DEC has the authority to address the pollution of New York waters and rejected the argument that the DEC’s authority to act was preempted by the Federal Clean Water Act (CWA):

Beginning in 2010, personnel of the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation reported pollution, including turbidity, color change, and suspended sediment, in New York’s Yeager Brook, downstream from and caused by petitioner’s operations in Pennsylvania, in contravention of New York’s water quality standards. Subsequently, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) entered into two consent orders with petitioner concerning the aforementioned pollution. Because of alleged continued and ongoing violations, the DEC commenced an administrative proceeding in New York seeking to enforce the consent orders and the penalties for the violations thereof. Petitioner commenced the instant proceeding contending, inter alia, that the DEC is acting in excess of its jurisdiction because the federal Clean Water Act ([CWA] 33 USC § 1251 et seq.) preempts the application of an affected state’s laws and regulations to an out-of-state point source … .

As the party seeking a writ of prohibition, petitioner bears a “heavy burden” of establishing a “clear legal right to relief or that prohibition would provide a more complete and efficacious remedy than the administrative proceeding and resulting judicial review” … . We conclude that respondents in support of their motion to dismiss established as a matter of law that petitioner could not meet that burden, and Supreme Court therefore properly granted the motion. The DEC had the statutory authority and jurisdiction to enter into the consent orders at issue and to commence the administrative proceeding to enforce those orders (see ECL 17-0303 [2], [4] [a], [b]; [5] [a]; see also ECL 17-0105 [1]; ECL 17-0501). Petitioner has failed to establish in this proceeding that the DEC’s exercise of such authority and jurisdiction is clearly preempted by the CWA, inasmuch as it has not shown that enforcement of the consent orders would “stand[] as an obstacle to the full implementation of the CWA” … . Moreover, the preemptive effect of the CWA “should be determined, in the first instance, through the administrative process”… . “[E]ven as to a clearly ultra vires act, prohibition does not lie against an administrative agency if another avenue of judicial review is available, absent a demonstration of irreparable injury to the applicant if [it] is relegated to such other course” … . No such irreparable injury has been demonstrated here.  Matter of US Energy Dev Corp v NYS Department of Environmental Protection, 2014 NY Slip Op 04591, 4th Dept 6-20-14

 

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