"Law: EPA Quietly Closes Complaint At Heart Of Civil Rights Suit"

"U.S. EPA closed a 14-year-old civil rights complaint against a landfill in a predominantly black community in Alabama last month, telling a federal court that legal challenges over its slow response to the case are moot.

Phyllis Gosa, a sixth-generation resident of the Ashurst Bar/Smith Community, filed the complaint in December 2003 after she was told a road was going to cut through 2 acres of her family's property to accommodate the reopening and expansion of the dump. She alleged discrimination by state regulators in approving permit changes to the Stone's Throw Landfill.

"No one contacted me or any of the people in the community that this modification was in play," Gosa told E&E News. "We had no clue that this was getting ready to take place."

EPA told attorneys representing Gosa in an April 28 letter that it had closed the book on her complaint. Days later, the agency asked a federal court to toss legal challenges over its long-delayed response."

Amanda Reilly reports for Greenwire May 11, 2017.