More Legal action against Trump Tower for Clean Water Act Violations

Last week, Friends of the Chicago River, the Sierra Club Illinois, and the Illinois Attorney General filed amended complaints against Trump International for failing to accurately compute and report the rate at which Trump Tower Chicago withdraws water from the Chicago River by approximately 44%, thus underestimating its impact on the river.

The amended complaints allege additional violations of the federal Clean Water Act at the skyscraper. For more than a decade, Trump Tower Chicago has underreported the rate at which it withdraws water from the Chicago River in reports required by the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency (IEPA). Legal discovery in Friends and the Sierra Club’s ongoing 2018 case against Trump Tower, along with submissions from Trump Tower to the IEPA, revealed this latest ongoing violation.

“The saga of Trump International’s violations of the Clean Water Act has gone on for far too long, and we look forward to working with the Attorney General to ensure that justice is finally served and the Chicago River is fully protected,” said Friends of the Chicago River Executive Director Margaret Frisbie. “We have worked for decades to transform the health of the river, and want to protect those investments and the people, fish, and other wildlife which benefit from them. We must support aquatic species, not destroy them.”

The IEPA requires that flow rate data be submitted in gallons per day, but Trump International reports a gallons per minute number that it multiplies by 1,000 and labels as gallons per day. Of course, there are not 1,000 minutes in a day—the conversion should be 60 minutes per hour x 24 hours per day; there are 1,440 minutes in a day. This misreporting dates back as far as February 28, 2013.