The stiff monetary sanctions, injunctions, and even prison terms that are authorized to be imposed upon violators of the federal pollution control laws¹ act as a "big stick" with which timely compliance is encouraged by federal and state enforcement authorities. There are circumstances, however, in which these remedies are simply not effective or realistically available. An example of such a case is where the noncompliant facility is publicly owned, such as a municipal electric utility. In this situation, practical and political considerations militate against the (1) levying of monetary sanctions, (2) issuance of injunctions against further operations, or (3) jailing the responsible public officials. In addition, traditional enforcement sanctions are likely to be less than ideally effective in the not uncommon case where the public or private violator is in poor financial health.

In several recent decisions, state and federal courts have adopted the common law remedy of receivership as a mechanism to coerce intransigent violators into compliance with the requirements of pollution control laws. Where injunctive relief has failed to solve the problem and monetary penalties appear inappropriate, these courts have appointed a single administrator with virtually unrestrained power to ride herd on a corporation or municipally owned facility until compliance is achieved. For example, one recent case concerned a municipal sewage treatment plant that for years had been discharging effluents in violation of federal limitations as well as a judicial enforcement order.² The court placed the plant under the direct control of a receiver who was given a mandate and full authority to take all measures deemed necessary to bring the plant into compliance. In another case involving a municipally operated electric generating plant that had fallen far behind a court-approved schedule for phasing the plant out of service, the court placed the facility under the control of a reciver rather than continue to cajole and threaten the existing management.³ Even more far-reaching are the implications of decisions by state courts in Ohio and Indiana that appointed receivers to assume control of privately owned corporations.⁴