Burton v. Dept. of Environmental Protection

Citations

• 337 Conn. 781

Syllabus

The plaintiff brought an action under the Connecticut Environmental Protec- tion Act of 1971 (CEPA) (§ 22a-14 et seq.) against the Commissioner of Environmental Protection and D Co., the owner and operator of a nuclear power plant in Waterford, seeking, inter alia, an injunction requiring the power plant to convert to a closed-cycle cooling system. The plaintiff previously had intervened in a proceeding before the Department of Environmental Protection to challenge the department's tentative deter- mination to renew a permit authorizing D Co. to withdraw water from Niantic Bay, cycle it through the power plant, and then discharge it into the Long Island Sound. In her CEPA action, the plaintiff claimed, inter alia, that the permit renewal proceeding was inadequate to protect the rights recognized by CEPA and that the current operation of the power plant would result in unreasonable pollution. The trial court rendered judgment dismissing the plaintiff's CEPA action for lack of standing. The plaintiff appealed, and this court reversed the trial court's judgment, unless imposed prior to the date of the amendment''); Va. Code Ann. § 1- 239 (2017) (''if any penalty, forfeiture, or punishment be mitigated by any provision of the new act of the General Assembly, such provision may, with the consent of the party affected, be applied to any judgment pronounced after the new act of the General Assembly takes effect''); W. Va. Code Ann. § 2-2-8 (LexisNexis 2018) (''if any penalty or punishment be mitigated by the new law, such new law may, with the consent of the party affected thereby, be applied to any judgment pronounced after it has taken effect''). 782 AUGUST, 2021 337 Conn. 781 Burton v. Dept. of Environmental Protection concluding that the plaintiff did have standing. Thereafter, the permit renewal proceeding continued, and, in 2010, after the department con- ducted an evidentiary hearing, the hearing officer issued a proposed final decision, in which the hearing officer