Two environmental groups plan to file a lawsuit against the Trump Organization for the second time in five years.
The Sierra Club and Friends of the Chicago River plan to sue former President Donald Trump’s firm, claiming the Trump International Hotel & Tower at 401 North Wabash Avenue violated the federal Clean Water Act, Klein’s report.
The groups issued notices of interest this week. They accused the company of violating the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System by underreporting how quickly the building draws water from the Chicago River.
The 92-story condo hotel is able to use the river as a cooling system and pour hot water back into the river because it has an NPDES permit, which is authorized by the Clean Water Act. The Trump Organization allegedly underreported traffic to the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency by 44% over the past 10 years.
Rob Weinstock, director of the Environmental Advocacy Center at Northwestern Pritzker School of Law and an attorney for the plaintiffs, told the press: “In the existing lawsuit, we had been looking at the environmental impact of Trump Tower taking water from the Chicago River, and when our experts simply scrutinized Trump Tower’s arithmetic, the inconsistency fell off the page.”
In 2018, the two groups, as well as the Illinois attorney general’s office, sued Trump on similar grounds. The attorney general’s office filed the lawsuit after discovering that the Trump property was the only riverside high-rise that failed to disclose its water intake system to state and federal authorities, the outlet said.
— Quinn Donoghue
