Town of Wallace v. North Carolina Department of Environment & Natural Resources

STEELMAN, Judge.

The Town of Wallace (“petitioner” or “Wallace”) operates a waste-water treatment plant under a national pollutant discharge elimination system (“NPDES”) permit issued by the North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (“DENR”) and the Division of Water Quality (“DWQ”). One of the main trunk lines into the plant runs along Little Rockfish Creek in Wallace.

On 16 June 1999, plant operator Doug Mears (“Mears”) arrived at 7:00 a.m. to discover that little or no sewage was flowing into the treatment plant. Mears informed Paul Parker (“Parker”), Director of Public…