A district court stayed further proceedings in litigation challenging EPA's "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule pending any further decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court. Numerous challenges throughout the country have been levied against the fi...

New York's highest court held that material questions of fact prevent it from ruling on whether a narrow waterway within a remote area of the Adirondack Mountains is navigable-in-fact and therefore open to public use. At issue in the case is the "Mud Pond Waterway," a two-mile-long system of ponds a...

A Florida appellate court reversed and remanded the state siting board's decision to permit a power company to construct and operate two new nuclear generating units and to install miles of new transmission lines in and near the East Everglades. The board failed to consider local regulations, as req...

A district court held it lacks subject matter jurisdiction over a class action lawsuit that stems from the water contamination crisis in Flint, Michigan. The plaintiffs alleged that the city violated their constitutional rights and state law by providing contaminated water and requiring them to pay ...

The Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision dismissing fishermen's NEPA claims against the Bureau of Reclamation in connection with its approval of eight interim two-year contracts for delivery of water from the Central Valley Project to...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit brought by individual miners and various mining groups, associations, and businesses challenging an Oregon law that temporarily bans instream motorized mining to protect water quality and fish habitat. The law, with some exceptions, temporarily prohibits instream...

A Montana court vacated and remanded a water discharge permit that the state's environmental agency issued to a coal mine in southeastern Montana. The agency's decisions are arbitrary and not supported by the law, and when viewed in its totality, the record demonstrates clear errors of judgment with...

A district court held that conservation groups lacked standing to challenge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ decision to reissue a nationwide permit (NWP 13) authorizing the discharge of dredged and fill material to construct bank stabilization projects. The groups alleged that the Corps reissued...

An Illinois appellate court held that the Illinois Pollution Control Board erred when it upheld the state environmental agency's decision to reissue NPDES permits for three large water reclamation plants in the Chicago area. Petitioners argued that the permits fail to include conditions ensuring tha...

A North Carolina appellate court upheld a trial court's decision to cap a property owner's award of remediation damages to the diminution in property value, not the amount it would cost to clean up the property, thereby reducing a jury's award from $1.5 million to $108,500. The case involves a prope...