As part of the settlement, Butte County agreed to implement new stormwater source-control measures and best management practices following a major storm in 2019 that reportedly contaminated wetlands.
By Michael Gennaro, Courthouse News Service
A federal judge approved a consent decree Friday in a case brought by a California environmental nonprofit against Butte County over a county-run solid waste facility.
That nonprofit, California Open Lands, maintains a wetland preserve in Butte County that leads to a Sacramento River tributary. The wetland sits near the Neal Road Recycling and Waste Facility — and during a major rainstorm in 2019, the nonprofit said the facility allowed contaminants to seep out of its facility and into the wetland.
The Butte County Department of Public Works operates the facility, which was damaged during the devastating Camp Fire in November 2018. In February 2019, a rainstorm inundated the area.
The storm caused leachate from the facility to seep into a stormwater basin and into a ditch that flows into the nonprofit’s wetland preserve, California Open Lands claimed. The group said stormwater next flowed into an unnamed creek and then into Hamlin Slough — a tributary of Butte Creek which is itself a tributary of the Sacramento River.
California Open Lands sued the Butte County Department of Public Works in January 2020, claiming violations of the Clean Water Act and the California General Permit, which regulate stormwater discharges associated with construction activities. The nonprofit accused the facility of discharging contaminated stormwater into the preserve and failing to implement and develop adequate stormwater pollution prevention and monitoring implementation plans.
U.S. District Judge Daniel Calabretta, a Joe Biden appointee, approved the consent decree Friday after denying summary judgment to California Open Lands in April, citing factual disputes in the case. With the consent decree approved, the case is now settled without an admission of guilt or liability from Butte County.
“As part of the proposed consent decree, the County agrees to implement and incorporate into the Facility’s Storm Water Pollution Prevention Plan various stormwater source control measures and best management practices,” Calabretta wrote in a four-page ruling approving the consent decree. “The County also agrees to abide by a set storm water sampling frequency for the 2024–2026 reporting years, and to test for certain sampling parameters.”
“Finally,” the judge continued, “the County agrees to permit plaintiff’s representatives to perform up to two inspections of the facility during the term of the consent decree, and to provide plaintiff with copies of all documents submitted to or received from the Regional Water Board or State Water Board concerning storm water management.”
The decree requires Butte County to make a payment of $300,000 to the Rose Foundation for Communities and the Environment, an Oakland environmental justice nonprofit. The Rose Foundation will use the money to fund grants, as well as to acquire and manage land and conservation easements to study and improve water quality in Butte County.
Butte County will also pay California Open Lands up to $23,000 for the nonprofit’s expenses — including for investigators, expert consultants, attorney fees and other costs associated with monitoring compliance. California Open Lands will file a motion for those costs within the next 60 days.
Attorneys for Butte County did not respond to requests for comment by press time. In a statement, California Open Lands said the decree ensures that “the practice of flushing pollutants downstream during storm events will no longer be practiced.”
“California Open Lands will continue in its post-settlement oversight role to ensure that the quality of our waterways in Butte County will be no longer be compromised in this way,” a spokesperson for the group wrote in an email to Courthouse News. “This Consent Decree will hopefully bring the County into compliance with the Clean Water Act and the General Permit.”
