- A Georgia couple has been awarded $135.5 million from a federal jury for damages to their property from polluted land and water by a solar company and its contractor.
- The engineering firm that designed the erosion and sediment control plan for SRC and IEA, was released from any liability
- “While we sincerely regret the unintentional damage to our neighbor’s property, Silicon Ranch does not believe the verdict in this trial is supported by the facts in this case.”
A federal jury has awarded a Georgia couple $135.5 million for damages to their property by a Tennessee-based solar company and its contractor.
The award against Silicon Ranch Corp. and its contractor, IEA Inc., was announced Friday by James E. Butler, attorney for plaintiffs Shaun and Amie Harris who live near Lumpkin, Georgia, south of Columbus, WRBL-TV reported.
According to the lawsuit, Silicon Ranch Corp. has developed more than 160 solar panel facilities across the country, many of which were built by IEA. At “Lumpkin Solar,” IEA cleared and mass-graded about 1,000 acres of timberland, farmland and land near the Harris couple that was previously used for recreational hunting and fishing — without installing adequate measures for erosion and sediment control, Butler said in a news release.
“The result was what one would expect — when it rained, pollution poured downhill and downstream onto the neighbors’ property, inundating wetlands with silt and sediment, and turning a 21-acre trophy fishing lake into a mud hole,” Butler said.
The companies “created, operated and maintained a nuisance … that caused sedimentation to pollute plaintiffs’ wetlands, streams and lake. The court further finds that this nuisance has continued for approximately two years unabated,” U.S. District Judge Clay D. Land said in the order.
ATLANTA ‘ACTIVE SHOOTER’ SITUATION LEAVES AT LEAST 1 DEAD, 4 INJURED, POLICE SAY: SUSPECT IDENTIFIED
The jury returned a compensatory damage verdict of $10.5 million.
In the punitive phase, where…
Read the full article here