The First Circuit held that a lower court erred in dismissing a landowner's CWA citizen suit for lack of proper pre-suit notice. The landowner filed suit against the neighboring property owner—an automobile salvage and recycling business—for discharging pollutants into U.S. waters without a vali...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that stormwater runoff from logging roads that is collected by and then discharged from a system of ditches, culverts, and channels is not a point source discharge for which an NPDES permit is required. An environmental group filed suit claiming that the Oregon forestry d...

The Ninth Circuit upheld an injunction prohibiting an environmental activist group from interfering with an oil company's outer continental shelf (OCS) exploration activities in the Arctic Ocean. The lower court's preliminary injunction barred the group from coming within specified distances of vess...

A West Virginia court reversed a decision by the state environmental quality board in which it remanded a NPDES permit for a mining company to the state environmental agency for further review and analysis. The board's decision not to defer to the state agency's interpretation of water quality stand...

A California appellate court upheld the California Department of Water Resources' (DWR's) method for crediting State Water Project (SWP) water recipients with revenues from hydropower generated at the Oroville Dam. DWR purchases the hydropower for use within the SWP, but some of it is pooled with ot...

A district court held that an environmental group may go forward with its citizens suit action against a water district for ongoing SDWA violations concerning, among other things, the sampling, monitoring, and reporting of dangerous contaminants. The water district filed a motion to dismiss, arguing...

A district court denied a poultry-processing company's motions for a new trial, for a judgment of acquittal, and to arrest judgment in a CWA case in which the company was found guilty for discharging untreated wastewater to a city's publicly owned treatment works. The city's pretreatment program pro...

The Court of Federal Claims dismissed a water district's breach of contract claims against the United States for failing to provide water drainage facilities and services. The district argued that the contracts it entered into with the government expressly obligated the government to provide drainag...

A North Carolina court held that the state's environmental agency has the authority to require an egg farm to obtain a NPDES permit to prevent airborne pollutants from reaching state waters. The egg farm does not make any direct discharges into state waters, but ammonia and other pollutants may ente...

The Federal Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing a developer's Fifth Amendment takings claim against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for denying its application for a CWA §404 wetlands fill permit. The property is located on a barrier island of Florida, much of which is ...