City of Middletown v. Hartford Electric Light Co.

473 A.2d 787, 192 Conn. 591, 66 A.L.R. 4th 675, 20 ERC (BNA) 2266, 1984 Conn. LEXIS 551
CourtSupreme Court of Connecticut
DecidedApril 3, 1984
Docket10613
StatusPublished
Cited by58 cases

This text of 473 A.2d 787 (City of Middletown v. Hartford Electric Light Co.) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Supreme Court of Connecticut primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
City of Middletown v. Hartford Electric Light Co., 473 A.2d 787, 192 Conn. 591, 66 A.L.R. 4th 675, 20 ERC (BNA) 2266, 1984 Conn. LEXIS 551 (Colo. 1984).

Opinion

Peters, J.

The principal issue in this case is whether the plaintiffs have established the factual and legal predicates of their environmental challenge to the defendants’ proposed disposal of toxic substances. The plaintiffs, the city of Middletown and Robert W. Frank, [593]*593the city’s zoning enforcement officer, brought an action in eight counts to enjoin the defendants, the Hartford Electric Light Company (HELCO) and its parent company, Northeast Utilities, from burning mineral oil containing polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) at HELCO’s electric generating plant in Middletown. The trial court, after a full hearing, dismissed counts one through six, and count eight, and ruled for the defendants on the merits of count seven. The plaintiffs have appealed all but the seventh count.

The trial court’s memorandum of decision contains the following finding of facts: HELCO operates a high efficiency boiler at its Middletown power generating facility, which is located in an area which is not an inland wetland. There, HELCO proposed to burn approximately 30,000 gallons per year of mineral oil that contains or may contain PCBs. The mineral oil is to be trucked to Middletown from other HELCO facilities where the contaminated oil was used as an insulating fluid in transformers and switch gear. Although the mineral oil is more highly refined than the fuel oil normally used to fire the boilers at the Middletown generating plant, it is usable and is proposed to be used as fuel oil for boiler No. 3 at the Middletown site.

The plaintiffs’ complaint is not aimed at the burning of the mineral oil itself but rather at the consequential proposed burning of the PCBs with which the mineral oil is contaminated. Because of this contamination, the mineral oil, like PCB itself, is a suspected carcinogen and poses a potential health hazard. In recognition of the toxic qualities of PCB, both the federal government and the state have regulated the disposal of substances containing PCBs. The defendants accordingly sought and obtained approval of their proposed burning of the mineral oil at the Middletown plant from both [594]*594the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)1 and the Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

With regard to the environmental risks associated with the proposed burning program, the trial court specifically "found that “[t]he evidence fails to establish that any ascertainable amount of pollutants will be produced.” “Further,” the court found, “the evidence fails to establish by a fair preponderance that any specific amount, or in fact any amount, of any or what material emitted from the boiler stacks at the [defendants’] burning site might be deposited on any parcel of the [city’s] real estate. There is neither pleading nor proof that the [defendants have] caused or will cause any disturbance or interference to the [city’s] use and enjoyment of its property.”

On the basis of these findings of fact, the trial court found the issues for the defendants on all eight counts of the plaintiffs' complaint. In their appeal from the dismissal of counts one through six and eight, the plaintiffs have raised six claims of error. They challenge the trial court’s legal conclusion that their claims, on counts three, four, five and six are preempted by federal law, and that they have no standing to pursue counts three, four, six and eight. They challenge the trial court’s mixed findings of fact and law: that count one of the complaint was subject to dismissal because the defendants were not operating a solid waste disposal facility; that count two was subject to dismissal because the defendants’ proposed burning was not subject to local inland wetland regulations; and that count eight was [595]*595subject to dismissal because the defendants’ proposed program was not a modification of the Middletown plant. Because we agree with the trial court’s conclusion with regard to the plaintiffs’ lack of standing to pursue counts three, four, six and eight and with its factual determinations with regard to the plaintiffs’ remaining counts, we find no error in its judgment without reaching the issue of preemption.

I

The issue of the plaintiffs’ standing must be addressed before we reach the substantive merits of the plaintiffs’ claim, because standing has jurisdictional implications. Molitor v. Molitor, 184 Conn. 530, 532-33, 440 A.2d 215 (1981); Mystic Marinelife Aquarium, Inc. v. Gill, 175 Conn. 483, 491, 400 A.2d 726 (1978). In counts three, four, six and eight of the plaintiffs’ complaint, they sought to enjoin the defendants’ proposed burning program for failure to obtain a variety of approvals and permits. They claim that the defendants were obligated to obtain: a PCB disposal permit under General Statutes § 22a-467 (formerly § 25-54vv); a solid waste facility permit under General Statutes § 22a-208 (formerly § 19-524b); a toxic waste disposal permit under General Statutes § 22a-220 (formerly § 19-524n); a new air contaminant permit under General Statutes § 22a-174 (c) (formerly § 19-508 [c]); a water discharge permit under General Statutes § 22a-430 (formerly § 25-541); a hazardous waste collection and treatment permit under General Statutes § 22a-454 (formerly § 25-54hh); and a certificate of environmental compatibility for modification of the Middletown plant under General Statutes § 16-50k. For all these claims, the trial court concluded that the plaintiffs lacked standing. We agree.

As in the trial court, the plaintiffs claim that they have standing both as a matter of classical aggrieve[596]*596ment and as a matter of statutory entitlement under the Environmental Protection Act. The standing issues relate only to enforceable interests of the plaintiff city since no independent claims have been raised on behalf of the coplaintiff, the city’s zoning enforcement officer.

With regard to the city’s standing to challenge the defendants’ failure to obtain permits, as a matter of classical aggrievement, the trial court held that the cited statutes authorized only administrative proceedings before the commissioner of the department of environmental protection and not a direct action for injunctive relief. In urging us, nonetheless, to imply the existence of a private enforcement mechanism, the city argues that, since it would have been aggrieved had the permits been granted, it is aggrieved by the failure of the defendants to apply for the permits. We are unpersuaded that the legislature intended, in the cited statutes, to create private causes of action to supplement the pervasive regulatory powers of the DEP over environmental licenses. When the legislature has authorized supplementary private causes of action, it has generally done so expressly. See, e.g., General Statutes §§ 22a-16 (Connecticut Environmental Protection Act) and 42-110g (a) (Connecticut Unfair Trade Practices Act). The legislature may well have concluded that private interests were amply served, without private causes of action, by affording access to private persons to the regulatory process by way of complaints to DEP or the council on environmental quality. General Statutes §§ 22a-6, 22a-13; see generally Cort v. Ash, 422 U.S. 66, 78-80, 95 S. Ct. 2080, 45 L. Ed. 2d 26 (1975).

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Bluebook (online)
473 A.2d 787, 192 Conn. 591, 66 A.L.R. 4th 675, 20 ERC (BNA) 2266, 1984 Conn. LEXIS 551, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/city-of-middletown-v-hartford-electric-light-co-conn-1984.