Pollution Suit Brought Against Power Firms


The Associated Press



NEW YORK— Residents of Ontario, Canada, have brought a lawsuit against 13 major U.S. and Canadian power companies seeking $50 billion to compensate them for alleged pollution damage from the companies' power plants.

The complaint, filed June 30 in the Superior Court of Ontario by province residents Christopher M. Robinson, Elizabeth May and Kimberly Perrotta, asks the court to approve a class-action claim for all Ontario residents to join and collect damages from the companies. On top of the $50 billion, the plaintiffs seek $4 billion in annual payments due to continuing damages and $1 billion in punitive damages.

May is the executive director of Sierra Club Canada. According to media reports, Robinson is a finance professor at York University in Toronto, and Perrotta is a public health consultant in Toronto.

The complaint focuses on pollution from coal-burning power plants in Ontario, Pennsylvania, West Virginia, Michigan, Ohio and Kentucky.

The corporations with subsidiaries named in the complaint are Ontario Power, DTE Energy Co., American Electric Power Co., FirstEnergy Corp., Reliant Energy, Public Service Enterprise Group, Exelon Corp., Allegheny Energy, Cinergy Corp., DPL Inc., Constellation Energy, PPL Corp. and Pepco Holdings Inc.

"The pollutants emitted by the defendants, alone and in combination, contribute to high levels of ambient air pollution, including ground-level ozone and particulate matter throughout Ontario, causing or contributing to severe public health and environmental problems," the plaintiffs allege in their complaint.

Before certifying a group of plaintiffs as a class, Canadian law requires the court to determine that the claims of the proposed class raise common issues and the class vehicle is the best way to resolve these issue, among other conditions.

It appears the lawsuit hasn't been served on most of the defendant companies. In its second quarter filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Reliant Energy said it was aware of the lawsuit but hadn't yet been served with the complaint by the plaintiffs.

"We are confident that we have operated and continue to operate our coal-fired generation facilities in material compliance with all applicable federal and state environmental regulations," the company said in its filing.

Spokesmen at AEP, DTE, Allegheny, FirstEnergy and Cinergy said the companies' lawyers were unaware of the complaint.

Lawyers for the plaintiffs at the firm Robins, Appleby & Taub LLP in Toronto couldn't immediately be reached for comment.

Under Canadian law, U.S. companies served with complaints in Canadian court have 40 days to file notice that they plan to contest the claims.

The plaintiffs argue that the power companies knew or should have known the harm their pollution caused on Ontario residents and that steps were available to limit this pollution, such as switching to natural gas or installing technology to reduce sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide emissions.