THE LOCAL AREA WATCH

JUDGE BUTH REBUKED

Not just one victory, but two.

The Michigan Court of Appeals also completely reversed Judge George Buth's dismissal of a related hazardous waste case your executive director had filed. It found that Buth, while serving as the chief judge of the Kent County Circuit Court (and recently dethroned by the State Court Adminstrator), had usurped the authority of the trial judge to toss out my hazardous waste complaint. It has now been re-instated.

In light of our appellate victory in the other case, I will probably have our attorney consolidate the two cases, which have been remanded to Judge James Redford. The recently-elected Redford replaced Judge David Soet after Soet resigned from the bench last year with two years left in his term. Soet's resignation was a surprise to everyone but us. He quit his post after we had filed a complaint against him in the U.S. District Court in which we alleged that he pressured a local attorney to put a witness on the stand to give perjured testimony.

Because of these events, suffice it to say that we have some confidence that the evidence, and not backroom deals, will determine the merit of our hazardous waste complaint from here on out.

COURT OK'S HAZARDOUS WASTE SUIT

Victory!

OK, it's not over, and it's not the beginning of the end. But it is the end of the beginning. On Thursday, June 24th, the Michigan Court of Appeals ruled that we had the right to bring a citizen suit against Fifth Third Bank, the City of Grand Rapids, the developers of the Berkey & Gay project, and their contractors for violations of Michigan's Hazardous Waste Management Act (HWMA) when they colluded to dump about 20,000 tons of lead- and arsenic-contaminated soil at the City's old water filtration plant on Monroe Avenue.

Two years ago Judge David Soet of the Kent County Circuit Court booted our case. He ruled ordinary citizens like yours truly were barred from suing miscreant polluters. The Court of Appeals, applying the plain words of the HWMA, said otherwise in its published opinion:

"The Plaintiffs correctly claim that they have standing to sue under [the HWMA]. ... The trial court stated that '[t]hat the real parties in interest in the environmental claims in this case are ... the general public, which is endangered by the alleged contamination confronted by the alleged violation of statutes of the [s]tate of Michigan,' and that this type of action would ordinarily be pursued by the attorney general. The act, however, expressly permits an individual to bring a civil action to remedy violations of the act and does not restrict the ability to sue to only those persons whose individual interests are harmed." [My emphasis.]

So, it's back to court where the polluters of the filtration plant will finally have to confront the videotape and photographic evidence refuting the false evidence they had presented to the Michigan Department of Environmental Quality, the Michigan Attorney General's office, and the court to stop our complaint against them.