A district court denied individuals' motion to enjoin the Ohio Department of Agriculture from issuing NPDES permits for concentrated animal feeding operations absent authorization from EPA. The plaintiffs failed to show a likelihood of success on the merits. The Ohio Department of Agriculture does n...

A Kentucky court rejected a proposed consent decree between the state's environmental agency and a coal mine concerning extensive CWA violations. The proposed consent decree is not fair, reasonable, or in the public interest. The agency failed to provide any public notice or comment period prior to ...

A district court issued a preliminarily injunction barring EPA from taking further steps under CWA §404(c) in connection with the proposed Pebble Mine project in southwestern Alaska until after the court has ruled on the merits of the mine's lawsuit against the Agency for alleged Federal Advisory C...

A district court held that an environmental group may seek injunctive relief and civil penalties against a mining company previously held liable for the unpermitted discharge of selenium into U.S. waters even though the company has since obtained new permits allowing such discharges. The company arg...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineer's determination that Nationwide Permit 12 (NWP 12) applied to the discharge of dredged and fill material in Alabama's Big Creek Lake watershed in connection with a larger pipeline construction pro...

A district court denied a mining company's motion for partial judgment in a case filed against it for alleged CWA and SMCRA violations. Environmental groups alleged that the mine violated narrative water quality standards and, therefore, the CWA and the SMCRA, by discharging excessive amounts of ion...

A district court dismissed a lawsuit challenging EPA's initiation of CWA §404(c) proceedings for the proposed Pebble Mine project, a large copper and gold mine in the Bristol Bay region of southwest Alaska. Alaska, which owns the land, as well as the company that owns the underlying mineral ri...

A district court upheld EPA's revocation of a CWA §404 permit allowing a mining company to discharge fill material from its West Virginia mountaintop coal mine into two nearby streams. EPA withdrew the permit's designation of the streams as disposal sites after determining that the discharges would...

The Ninth Circuit held that the owner and operator of a coal export terminal may be held liable under the CWA for non-stormwater discharges of coal into Resurrection Bay, Alaska. Because the facility has been covered under the Multi-Sector General Permit for Stormwater Discharges Associated with Ind...

A district court upheld a dredge-and-fill permit the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued to a mining company allowing it to conduct surface coal mining activities at a proposed 725-acre site in Boone County, West Virginia. Environmental groups challenged the permit, arguing that the Corps failed to ...