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Overview:
-An EPA lawsuit against EES Coke Battery asks for civil penalties of up to $109,024 per day for Clean Air Act violations.
-EES Coke Battery is the fifth-worst polluter in the state for sulfur dioxide emissions and fourth-worst for fine particulate matter, according to a report released last year by an advocacy group.
-The Zug Island facility filed for a Clean Air Act exemption offered by the Trump administration in May.
DTE Energy should not be liable for its subsidiary on Zug Island, EES Coke Battery, an attorney for the utility argued Monday in federal court.
An EPA attorney said DTE has ultimate control over the business and EES Coke Battery has “zero authority.”
The statements came in a hearing on a federal lawsuit filed by the Environmental Protection Agency in 2022 against EES Coke Battery. DTE Energy was added as a defendant in the lawsuit last year.
The lawsuit alleges that EES Coke Battery’s coke oven facility violated the Clean Air Act, emitting thousands of tons of the air pollutant sulfur dioxide.
The EPA said the company emitted more pollution than its revised 2014 permit allowed and brushed aside legal requirements to install pollution controls, worsening the air quality and health of nearby residents.
In its original complaint, filed June 1, 2022, the EPA asks the court to forbid the operation or modification of the coke oven battery unless EES Coke follows the Clean Air Act and other regulations.
The court should order EES Coke to apply for New Source Review permits for each pollutant illegally emitted, install pollution control technology, “remedy, mitigate and offset” harms to public health and the environment, and fine EES Coke a civil penalty of up to $109,024 each day for each violation, the EPA said in the complaint.
EES Coke Battery is the fifth-worst polluter in the state for sulfur dioxide emissions and fourth-worst for fine particulate matter, according to a report released last year by advocacy group Industrious Labs. The facility filed for a Clean Air Act exemption offered by the Trump administration in May.
In a February motion for summary judgment, DTE said it cannot be held liable for the Clean Air Act claims against EES Coke Battery.