JURIST - Paper Chase: Canada opposes EPA's decision to punish company

In environmental law news for Friday, AP reports that Canadian officials have declared that the US Environmental Protection Agency is overstepping its bounds by demanding that owners of Teck Cominco Metals, Ltd., a British Columbia based company, pay to study the pollution it discharged into the Columbia River. The dispute focuses on whether the EPA is permitted to invoke measures against the company under the US law relating to hazardous materials known commonly as Superfund. Canada believes that the EPA should rescind its order against the company due to a lack of jurisdiction, while the agency contends Superfund should apply because the pollution ended up in the United States. The company has reportedly dumped about 10 to 20 million tons of waste containing heavy metals into the river, which in turn have deposited in nearby Lake Roosevelt located in Washington state... AP reports that a study released by a panel of scientists appointed by the National Research Council has asserted that the Department of Energy (DOE) has not performed the necessary testing for the easement of regulations regarding disposals of nuclear waste shipped to the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant near Carlsbad, New Mexico. Rather than physically testing the radioactive materials as they are shipped into the plant, the new rules require only that barrels of waste be recorded in order to determine the eligibility for burial at the site. The DOE contends that safety checks would cost over $3 billion and create delays.

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