Center Defeats Blue Mountain Racetrack Plan

On September 7, 2006, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (“EHB”) vacated the stormwater discharge permit issued by DEP for a sports car road course and club on the slopes of Blue Mountain in Monroe County.  The decision was a significant victory for the Center and its client Blue Mountain Preservation Association.  The EHB adopted the Center’s argument, holding that Alpine Rose Resorts, the permittee, failed to comply with Pennsylvania’s Antidegradation regulations protecting High Quality and Exceptional Value waters.  Specifically, the EHB found that the permittee’s compliance with stormwater regulations was not sufficient on its own to satisfy the Antidegradation requirements. 

The Environmental Hearing Board heard the case in a four-day hearing in March.  The Center sought to establish that both Alpine and DEP failed to conduct the required Non-discharge Alternatives Analysis and the Antidegradation Best Available Control Technology (ABACT) analysis.  The case builds upon the Center’s victory in the Zlomosowitch v. DEP case from 2004 that re-affirmed the importance of the Antidegradation regulations in Pennsylvania.  Together, theses important precedents will help protect environmentally sensitive waters by ensuring that developers and state regulators properly consider the potential impacts of stormwater discharges in the Keystone State.

Alpine Rose proposed to discharge storm waters from the extensive paved areas of the property to the Aquashicola Creek, a High Quality cold water fishery.  The upper portions of the proposed course skirted within several hundred yards of an isolated stretch of the Appalachian Trial.

The EHB decision was appealed by Alpine Rose to the Commonwealth Court.  DEP, however, did not file an appeal.  The case will be briefed for the Court in the coming months.