Another Trump lawsuit on the horizon

State records obtained by the Tribune show the president’s glass-and-steel skyscraper [Trump International Hotel & Tower] is one of the largest users of Chicago River water for its cooling systems, siphoning nearly 20 million gallons a day through intakes so powerful the machines could fill an Olympic swimming pool in less than an hour, then pumping the water back into the river up to 35 degrees hotter.

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Like other large users that draw water directly from rivers or lakes, Trump Tower is required to follow federal and state regulations detailing how facilities should limit the number of fish pinned against intake screens or killed by sudden changes in pressure and temperature.

Yet of the nearly dozen high-rises that rely on the Chicago River for cooling water, the decade-old skyscraper developed by Donald Trump is the only one that has failed to document it took those measures.

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All of the other users of river water have filed documents with the state outlining how their cooling systems limit fish kills. Most draw substantially less water than Trump Tower and slow the velocity of their intakes to increase the chances fish can swim away safely, records show.

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Citing the state’s lack of enforcement, Ettinger and Mark Templeton, director of the Abrams Environmental Law Clinic at the University of Chicago, notified Trump Tower’s managers on Friday that the nonprofit groups are preparing a federal lawsuit accusing them of repeatedly violating the 1972 Clean Water Act.

Questions raised by the lawyers already appear to be having their intended effect.

Kim Biggs, an Illinois EPA spokeswoman, said agency officials granted Trump Tower a four-year permit in 2013 and proposed renewing it this year based on limited information from building representatives. But the agency is planning to revise its draft “to address a number of issues” regarding the skyscraper’s cooling intakes, Biggs said, and will hold a public hearing to discuss the changes. “Your references to the January 2018 draft permit may no longer be relevant once the new draft permit is put to notice,” she said in an email.

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As a presidential candidate, Trump repeatedly condemned environmental regulations and vowed to abolish the federal EPA. The anti-regulation agenda he has pushed since taking office is carried out in part by EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, who as Oklahoma attorney general scaled back enforcement of environmental laws and sued the federal agency 13 times to block or delay clean air and water rules.

Last year the American Public Power Association urged the Trump administration to add the cooling intake regulations to its list of environmental rules to overhaul or abolish.

For now, at least, the rules are still in effect.

  Chicago Tribune