Since 2010, PGP´s Environmental Practice has been providing legal advice and support to one of the most important university´s in the Country, in order to obtain different environmental permits required by environmental laws.
Among the permits required, the University required an effluents discharge permit in order to dump all sewage or waste water into natural water sources, specifically a river that crosses its property. However, the Client did not have the permit and was subject to the imposition of a preventive measure by the competent environmental authority consisting in the temporary suspension of the institution’s sewage discharges, obliging the institution to contract sewage treatment and disposal services with authorized contractors under a high cost.
In this particular case, the permit was required for the University´s operation since it is located in a rural area where there is no connection to the public sewerage. Therefore, the only solution for waste water disposal was to request a permit before local environmental authorities and guarantee a correct treatment of waste-water in a treatment plant and the compliance of strict parameters.
Without a permit, the University was assuming high costs contracting third companies to treat and dispose these type of waters in order to comply environmental laws and to operate according to the law.