Los Angeles Waterkeeper, a public benefit non-profit corporation, filed a complaint against Grover Products, a California corporation, alleging the defendant violated the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, the Clean Water Act, and the terms and conditions of several water quality control permits.
The complaint purports that the defendant is liable for past and ongoing failures to comply with the Clean Water Act, relating to compliance with discharge prohibitions, technology-based and water quality limitations, and monitoring their compliance with permit requirements.
The complaint cites a study to state that water quality specialists agree that more than half of the total pollution entering local creeks and rivers each year is due to the storm water pollution. The complaint also cites numerous studies documenting serious health risks to recreational users of southern California’s waters from said pollution. Los Angeles’ waters contain essential ecological systems as well as provide numerous recreational activities. The complaint alleges industrial facilities, like the defendant’s, that discharge polluted storm water harm the economic, social, and environmental benefits these waters provide.
The Grover Products facility has been enrolled in the General Permit since Dec 24, 1992, the plaintiffs said. The company’s business is the development, and manufacture, of signal horns for transportation industries. The complaint alleges the Grover Products Facility’s collected storm water samples, from January 2017 to March 2021, contain an excess of pollutant concentrations according to the government benchmark; and, there are also several incidences in 2021 where the defendant failed to collect required storm water samples.
The plaintiff seeks the following relief: the declaration the defendant has violated and is in violation of the General Permit and Clean Water Act, the ordering of the defendant to comply with the General Permit’s monitoring and reporting requirements, compensation for past violations, the payment of civil penalties owed, the ordering of the defendant to take the appropriate actions to restore the waters damaged, and an award of plaintiff’s costs.
The plaintiff is represented by Sycamore Law Inc.
