A New York trial court held that the state environmental agency's general permit for stormwater discharges from municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4) violates the CWA and state law. By allowing discharges based on an applicant's notice of intent (NOI) to discharge, the permitting scheme c...

A district court held that a mining company is liable for discharging arsenic and iron into a nearby creek in violation of its NPDES permit. The company did not deny or admit that it is in violation of its permit. Instead, it argued that the environmental group that filed suit against it lacked ...

The Federal Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a landowner's claim for just compensation under the Fifth Amendment for an alleged taking based on the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' denial of the landowner's proposal to operate a mitigation bank on its property. A mitigation bankin...

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The U.S. Supreme Court held that the Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act (OCSLA) extends workers compensation coverage to an employee who can establish a substantial nexus between his injury and his employer's extractive operations on the outer continental shelf (OCS). The case arose after the emp...

The Supreme Court of Washington held that state law does not limit the amount of water that can be withdrawn from groundwater for livestock-watering purposes. Local farmers and environmentalists sought a declaration that the stockwatering exemption from state permitting requirements is limited t...

The D.C. Circuit held that a home builders association lacked standing to challenge the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of nationwide permit (NWP) 46, which allows persons to secure approval for qualifying discharges into "waters of the United States" without going through the more laborious ...

A California appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court decision invalidating a settlement agreement between the state and three water and irrigation agencies concerning the intra-state right to water from the Colorado River. In addition to allocating water rights within the state, the sett...

The D.C. Circuit held that a home builders' association lacked standing to challenge EPA's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' determination that two reaches of the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona constitute "traditional navigable waters" (TNW) under the CWA. Although the association has spen...

The Sixth Circuit upheld an individual's conviction for unlawfully discharging industrial wastewater into the Detroit sewer system. The individual, who worked at an industrial waste treatment facility, was sentenced to two 24-month prison terms, to run concurrently, for knowingly violating EPA-a...