Sierra Club v. Virginia Electric & Power Co.

OPINION

John A. Gibney, Jr,, United States District Judge

The Sierra Club has sued Virginia Electric and Power Company d/b/a Dominion Virginia Power (“Dominion”) for violations of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”). The violations stem from discharges of arsenic from Dominion’s Chesapeake Energy Center (“CEC”) into the surrounding surface waters.

For roughly fifty years, the CEC burnt coal to generate electricity. Dominion *756stored ash from the burnt coal in piles and lagoons on the CEC site. The piles and lagoons, in turn, conveyed arsenic created in the power plant to groundwater and, through the…