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Erica Spitzig

Erica has significant experience representing clients on Clean Water Act matters, and has worked extensively with municipalities on clean water legal and regulatory issues. She also represents clients on a wide array of environmental matters. She assists clients with permitting and compliance involving a variety of media and statutes, including the Clean Water Act, Clean Air Act, Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), Federal Insecticide and Rodenticide Act (FIFRA), among other federal, state and local environmental laws. Erica also has extensive experience with Brownfields laws and regulations, and works with clients to remediate properties contaminated by long histories of industrial use under CERCLA and state laws, including the Ohio Voluntary Action Program. She also routinely litigates environmental cases in state and federal court, including matters involving RCRA, CERCLA, and other state and federal environmental laws.

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On June 29, EPA issued a draft guidance memorandum, “Draft Guidance for Reducing Risk from Perfluorooctanoic Acid (PFOA) and Perfluorooctane Sulfonic Acid (PFOS) in Biosolids.” The Draft Guidance reaffirms EPA’s endorsement of reuse of biosolids through land application as a fertilizer and soil conditioner…

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On August 8, 2024, the Coosa River Basin Initiative (CRBI), an environmental organization based in Georgia,  and the City of Calhoun, Georgia (the City), announced that they had reached a proposed settlement in a citizen suit case involving alleged violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) focused solely on the City’s land application of PFAS-containing biosolids.

CRBI, through its counsel at Southern Environmental Law Center, filed a complaint in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Georgia on March 7, 2024, against the City and the owner of property used for land application of the City’s biosolids. The Complaint included the following alleged CWA violations:

  • The City’s land application of PFAS-contaminated biosolids onto land that was hydrologically connected to navigable waters through groundwater was the “functional equivalent” of discharging PFAS directly into navigable waters without an NPDES permit;
  • That PFAS are a toxic pollutant and that the City, therefore, violated its existing NPDES permit by failing to “take all reasonable steps to minimize or prevent any discharge or sludge disposal which might adversely affect human health or the environment,” provide notice to downstream users and take reasonable steps to prevent injury when a toxic substance has been discharged, and enforce noncompliance with any applicable pretreatment standard or requirement.

After much anticipation in the environmental community, EPA has announced proposed enforceable drinking water standards for six PFAS compounds, including PFOA and PFOS.

Unlike the agency’s two prior health advisories, these maximum contaminant levels (MCLs), if finalized, will set legally enforceable compliance standards for drinking water. Of interest is that EPA set the new proposed MCLs for PFOA and PFOS at the practical quantitation level (PQL), defined as the “lowest concentration of a contaminant that can be reliably achieved within specified limits of precision and accuracy during routine laboratory operating conditions.” According to EPA, “EPA has determined that PFOA and PFOS are likely carcinogens (i.e., cancer causing) and that there is no level of these contaminants that is without a risk of adverse health effects. Therefore, EPA is proposing the set the MCL for these two contaminants at four parts per trillion, the lowest feasible level based on the ability to reliably measure and remove these contaminants from drinking water.” Thus, although the proposed enforceable MCLs are higher than EPA’s 2022 Health Advisory for PFOA and PFOS, which were set based on health risks, the proposed new MCLs are still set at essentially the instrument detection levels.