Attorneys for Gold Coast Commodities want the testimony of an engineer thrown out in the city of Brandon's lawsuit against the chemical company that alleges damage to the city's sewer system.
The brief, filed on July 28 in Rankin County Circuit Court, wants the testimony of engineer Nathan Husman excluded from the record. Husman filed a report after examining some polyvinyl chloride (PVC) sewer pipes that were excavated in December 2020 near Gold Coast.
Gold Coast's motion and the city's motion for summary judgment in the case will be heard on August 18.
He said in the inspection report that he'd never witnessed the types of damage (samples of pipe were “out of round” and “egg shaped”) in his 27 years of engineering practice.
Attorneys for Gold Coast argue that the city only has temperature data for a 48-hour period and that Husman didn't do enough research about the temperature of wastewater from Gold Coast's process.
This process transforms used cooking oil and soapstock — which is a byproduct which originates from the refining of soybean and other oils — into animal feed and biodiesel using sulfuric acid.
Gold Coast attorneys also say in the brief that pipes from above the former Reckitt Benckiser plant that adjoins Gold Coast's property and down stream of Gold Coast didn't show significant thermal damage.
The attorneys for the chemical manufacturer want the judge to throw out Husman's testimony on what is known as a Daubert motion, a standard based on a 1993 federal case. According to this standard, the judge in the case is the gatekeeper when it comes scientific knowledge of an expert, the relevance, reliability and methodology used in their testimony.
The city of Brandon wants the court to grant summary judgement after its attorneys filed an amended motion on July 16 that updated the original motion on June 23.
Gold Coast attorneys argue in a counter-filing that four experts who provided testimony in the case have multiple possible causes for the damage to the city's PVC pipes downstream of Gold Coast's Brandon plant.
The Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality ordered the company to stop dumping its wastewater into Brandon's system in 2016. After the DEQ order, the company started dumping its wastewater in Jackson before shifting disposal to Pelahatchie, where the state Commission on Environmental Quality order the company to stop dumping in the lagoon leased there. The separate Permit Board revoked the company's wastewater permit at Pelahatchie.
A judge’s order moved Gold Coast’s challenge to Rankin County, where Gold Coast does its business.
The company is now disposing of its wastewater in Memphis, Tennessee after the commission and the Permit Board ordered it to stop using its Pelahatchie lagoon
The city of Jackson filed its own lawsuit against Gold Coast in late June in Hinds County Circuit Court. Andrew Walker, the owner of Rebel High Velocity Sewer, was indicted last year and later pleaded guilty to federal water pollution charges in a deal with federal prosecutors. Walker's conditions in his plea agreement were placed under seal by the court.
