Union Carbide South Charleston Landfill Case Appealed To 4th Circuit

A real-estate company has appealed a federal judge’s ruling in a case against Union Carbide.

The Courtland Company, which owns property in South Charleston adjacent to a closed Union Carbide landfill, filed an appeal Friday with the Fourth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond, Virginia.

Courtland is appealing a late September decision by U.S. District Judge John T. Copenhaver Jr. to impose a $200,000 civil penalty against Union Carbide for violating the Clean Water Act.

Union Carbide’s Filmont Landfill in South Charleston operated for roughly three decades without stormwater discharge permits, with its contents leaching into nearby Davis Creek, a tributary of the Kanawha River.

In 2023, Copenhaver found that the site was an illegal open dump. Courtland sought civil penalties of more than $1 billion and for Copenhaver to order a cleanup supervised by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under its Superfund program.

Instead, Copenhaver allowed Union Carbide to continue with a voluntary remediation of the site it had initiated with the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection.

In a statement, Union Carbide said the company “is confident the court correctly rejected The Courtland Company, Inc.’s demands for excessive penalties and excessive remedial efforts.” It added that the Filmont remediation work continues.

The appeal continues a legal saga that began in 2018 when Courtland first sued Union Carbide.

The Fourth Circuit is regarded as more sympathetic to environmental concerns than other courts. It struck down multiple permits for the contested Mountain Valley Pipeline before Congress removed those cases from its jurisdiction.

Copenhaver, 99, is one of the last sitting federal judges appointed by President Gerald Ford.