CORPUS CHRISTI, Texas — Friday a federal agency along with the state of Texas filed a lawsuit against the city of Corpus Christi. The lawsuit accusing the city of violating the Clean Water Act and the Texas water code.
The Environmental Protection Agency and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality teamed up on the suit. City Attorney, Miles Risley, says that is a necessary and expected step, toward an eventual settlement of the dispute.
The lawsuit claims the city released wastewater from a sanitary sewer system into federal waters.
Risley says the negotiations started over 10 years ago, when the city first
got on the EPA’s radar after sewer systems repeatedly overflowed into local bay waters. Since then, Risley says the city has been working to improve the sewer system.
“We were having many, many overflows than we're having now. Over the last 10 years we've reduced our overflows by 95 percent with our additional investment,” said Risley.
The law suit follows an agreement back in August, and approved by the city council, that outlines the expectations and penalties if the city fails to improve its wastewater system over the next 15 years.