News

Knoxville attorney and former Tennessee Bar Association President Pamela Reeves has been appointed by U.S District Judge Tom Varlan to jointly mediate the class-action lawsuit linked to the 2008 Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) coal ash spill at Kingston Fossil Plant. Some 872 plaintiffs are suing TVA over damages that are allegedly related to the spill, which fouled the Emory River and the surrounding Roane County countryside with 5.4 million cubic yards of coal ash. Reeves and Florida lawyer Rodney Max, who will serve as joint mediator, were both recommended by the parties in the case, the Knoxville News Sentinel reports.

According to the Tennessean, several environmental advocacy groups are preparing a federal lawsuit against the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) for planning to replace an endangered fish nursery at the Gallatin Fossil Plant with a pollution control facility. The TVA last month announced its plan to remove the Cumberland River Aquatic Center from the Gallatin site to make room for a 15-story coal-ash dump as part of a $1 billion plan to overhaul the plant’s pollution equipment. The Sierra Club, Tennessee Environmental Council and other groups allege the move will harm endangered fish and mussels, violating the Endangered Species Act. 

Don Fillers, who was sentenced to a four-year prison sentence in a well-publicized asbestos case, still has a court-appointed attorney although documents presented to the court show he purchased more than $2 million in property and valued his home at $403,000, the Chattanoogan reports. Federal Magistrate Judge Bill Carter said there were still unanswered questions about Fillers' finances, and set another hearing for Tuesday. Fillers is scheduled to go into federal prison Friday.

The University of Tennessee Knoxville chapter of Amnesty International will host Robert D. Bullard, the “father of environmental justice,” Knoxnews reports. One of the nations top scholars on environment justice, racism, and corporate accountability, Bullard will speak tonight at 7 p.m in the University Center Auditoirium. It is free and open to the public.

The TBA Environmental Law Section has announced the sixth annual Jon E. Hastings Memorial Award writing competition for law students enrolled in a Tennessee law school in 2012 or 2013. The competition is held in memory of one of the section's most outstanding founding members and has a cash prize pool of $1,200. It is a juried competition for the best legal writing on a topic of Tennessee or federal environmental law. Entries are due April 1, 2013. The competition rules and announcement are available here in downloadable format.

Three men who conspired to violate the Clean Air Act when they demolished, without taking precautions, a Chattanooga factory containing large amounts of asbestos, were sentenced Monday in federal court. U.S. District Judge Curtis Collier sentenced David Wood, James Mathis and Donald Fillers and the Watkins Street Project LLC for their roles in the conspiracy. They were sentenced between 18 and 48 months and required to pay tens of thousands of dollars in fines and restitution. “These sentences send a strong message that criminal violations of environmental laws designed to protect human health from exposure to hazardous substances, such as asbestos, will not be tolerated,” said U.S. Attorney Bill Killian. NewsChannel9 reports

The U.S. Justice Department is urging a federal judge to ignore BP’s assertion that the Gulf Coast's natural resources are making a "robust recovery" from its massive 2010 oil spill. In a court filing Friday, government lawyers also renewed their vow to prove at trial that BP engaged in gross negligence or willful misconduct leading up to the deadly rig explosion that spawned the nation's worst offshore oil spill. WRCB TV reports that the combative language is a sign that BP and the Justice Department are not close to a settlement that would resolve the federal government's claims against the oil giant before a trial scheduled for next year.

Belmont University opened its new Randall and Sadie Baskin Center in a ribbon-cutting celebration this morning attended by Nashville Mayor Karl Dean, U.S. Rep. Jim Cooper and many of the donors who helped finance the 75,000-square-foot building that houses Belmont University’s College of Law. The center contains more than a dozen classrooms, a trial courtroom, an appellate courtroom, a two-story law library and more than 20 faculty offices. Belmont is seeking LEED certification for the building, which also uses a geothermal system to provide heating and cooling. The new law school welcomed its second class this fall, and is in the process of seeking American Bar Association accreditation.

At least six people are eying the third General Session judge position in Washington County, including Ken Baldwin, assistant district attorney general for the First Judicial District; Douglas Carter, an attorney in Johnson City; Suzanne Cook, with Hunter, Smith & Davis; Bill Donaldson, assistant public defender for the First Judicial District; Janie Lindamood, an attorney in Johnson City; and Dan Smith, an attorney in Jonesborough. The Johnson City Press reports that county commissioners have voted to appoint an eight-member legal services committee to work out the process for filling the new post, which will help the court take on additional responsibilities, including environmental issues.

News from the Environmental Law Section
Congratulations to William Airhart, Vanderbilt University Law School (class of 2012) as winner of the Jon Hastings Memorial Award Writing Competition.  This writing competition sponsored by the TBA Environmental Law Section is in memory of Jon Hastings, one of the founding members of the Section. William's paper is titled "After AEP: The Climate Change Tort and the Social Cost of Carbon."

The deadline for the the TBA's Environmental Law Section writing contest is just a few days away. The Jon E. Hastings Memorial Award Writing Competition, honoring one of the founding members of the section, awards a total cash prize pool of $1,200. Entries are due no later than 11:59 p.m. ET on April 2, 2012.

An environmental showdown in Maryland pits the governor against the dean of the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. This week, Gov. Martin O'Malley sent a harshly worded letter to Dean Phoebe Haddon calling the school's environmental clinic's involvement in a lawsuit an "ongoing injustice." The governor asked Haddon to end the school's connection to the suit filed in March 2010 against poultry giant Perdue Farms Inc. and a chicken farm that supplies the company. The suit, which claims the groups are illegally discharging pollution into several waterways, has rankled lawmakers who said it hurts local industry. Legislators threatened to cut $250,000 from the university's budget unless every one of the law school's clinics turn over information about the clients they have represented during the past five years. Read more in the National Law Journal