Land Use and Sustainable Development Law Clinic Begins at WVU Law
West Virginia Law is launching a new clinic which sit at the intersection of land use and natural resource extraction/conservation. From the Register-Herald:
A new law clinic at West Virginia University, funded by millions of dollars in legal settlements between environmental groups and coal companies, will focus much of its effort on the New and Gauley river watersheds.
…“There are just a handful of these land use clinics across the country,” says [clinic managing attorney Nathan Fetty. “The idea was that West Virginia does not have the resources for land and water protection like surroundings states, so this clinic is an effort to beef up West Virginia’s resources to protect land and water. For us to have this clinic in West Virginia is a big feather in our cap as far as we’re concerned.”
The clinic resulted from lawsuits brought by environmental groups against coal companies for pollution discharges. Instead of penalties going into the general funds of federal coffers, the litigants decided to use the money to create a “supplemental environmental project,” or SEP.
“In other words, we’re funded by virtue of those payments by coal companies to settle these lawsuits,” says Fetty.
The clinic will work closely with the West Virginia Land Trust, which will receive about $4.5 million from settlements, mostly from a case involving Alpha Resources.