In Memoriam: Robert Ging, Environmental Attorney

Robert P. Ging, Jr., an environmental attorney, passed away in Pittsburgh on August 31.  Going, an avid outdoorsman who loved hunting and fishing, moved to Confluence, PA to live out his dream of being a modern day mountain man.

Ging, who had been affectionately named the "Good Lawyer" for his tireless efforts to fight for the environment and those who enjoyed it. He took great pride in doing battle for those who couldn't defend themselves.

As part of a history of PA Trout Unlimited by Michael J. Klimkos* published in 2003, Diana Stares, a former DER/DEP attorney, wrote this appreciation of Bob Ging--

I can still hear the excitement in Howie Wein’s voice when he announced to the Department of Environmental Resources’ legal staff in Pittsburgh that a new lawyer had been found to represent the department’s surface mining program.

It was 1978, after the enactment of the federal Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act, but before any of the changes that would flow from that landmark legislative effort to curb the abuses of the surface mining industry would be felt in Pennsylvania.

DER’s surface mining regulatory program was the stepchild of the agency and seen by many, both inside and outside of the agency, as an apologist for and enabler of the industry. The program needed a strong lawyer.

It found it in Bob Ging.

Bob was a lawyer and an outdoorsman — an avid hunter and fisherman. He had tired of using the trial skills that he had developed first while serving as the tipstaff for Judge Weir of the Court of Common Pleas in Allegheny County during his law school years and later as a young lawyer working for a civil defense firm in Pittsburgh to save money for insurance companies.

He wanted to use those skills to protect the environment and promote conservation. To his way of thinking, there was no better place to start than the lethargic surface mining program in Pennsylvania.

Bob took the coal industry by storm. Appalled by the destruction caused by surface mining to the land and the streams in the bituminous coal fields he commenced a campaign to compel the industry to comply with the law. Bob always noted that the law was fine; it simply needed to be enforced.

Bob enforced the law with a vengeance.

When he discovered that the bankrupt Blake Becker was mining without mining permits in Clarion and Jefferson counties, he charged past the bankruptcy court to file criminal charges against Blake.

Upon discovering that Maynard Graham was doing the same thing in Clearfield County, he obtained a county court injunction and then called the state police in to enforce it. Before the police could arrive, Bob had to take matters into his own hands by lying down in front of Maynard’s bulldozer.

When the powerful Al Hamilton Contracting Co. failed to comply with the Commonwealth Court’s orders to replace the contaminated water supplies of numerous innocent homeowners in the town of Egypt in Clearfield County, Bob filed petitions for contempt requesting hearings each Christmas Eve for three years in a row.

He successfully prosecuted Solomon and Teslovich in Fayette County for a variety of violations including discharging acid-mine drainage, and did so despite the fact that the district attorney in the county was the father of one of the principals of the company.

He protected Big Sandy Creek watershed in Fayette County by successfully defending before the Environmental Hearing Board DERs denial of a mining permit to Boyle Land and Fuel Co.

The list of operators whom Bob fought in just about every court and tribunal in Pennsylvania is too long to recite.

Bob was able to execute this campaign by joining forces with individuals who shared his passion for the environment and had the technical expertise to support the litigation that he conducted.

He forged working relationships with a variety of individuals — Porter Duvall, Jim Ansell and John Arway of the Fish Commission; Karl Sheaffer, Roger Hornberger and Mark Frederick of the DER, to name a few.

Click Here to read Bob Ging’s obituary from the Post-Gazette.

*Stares, Diana, Esq. The Lions, Robert Ging, in A History of Trout Unlimited and the Environmental Movement: 1959 - 2000 by Michael J. Klimkos, Pennsylvania Trout, Carlisle, PA, 2003. (Used with permission.)

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