A district court held that plaintiffs may go forward with their CWA citizen suit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and a California water authority in a case involving the need for a NPDES permit for an irrigation project jointly administered by the two agencies. The plaintiffs pled sufficient ...
A district court held that environmental groups may go forward with their CWA lawsuit against a rail carrier for allowing coal dust from open-top rail cars to be released into U.S. waterways. At issue was whether coal dust from rail cars that falls onto land, rather than directly into the waters, of...
The Sixth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers complied with NEPA and the CWA when it issued a §404 permit to a mining company for a secondary mining project that was part of a larger mining operation in Kentucky. The Kentucky Division of Mine Permits, which has exclusive jurisdiction...
The Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a lawsuit filed by 11 Louisiana parishes in which they sought penalties under the Louisiana Wildlife Protection Statute for the pollution-related loss of aquatic life and wildlife following the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the ...
A district court granted EPA's motion to amend a consent decree requiring it to adopt numeric criteria for Florida's waters unless the state does so first. Florida adopted new nutrient criteria, but for some waters, the criteria are not numeric. EPA then sought to modify the consent decree so that t...
The Fifth Circuit upheld the conviction and sentencing of the former owner of a wastewater treatment facility who allowed the disposal of untreated wastewater into U.S. waters without a permit. The former owner argued that the lower court erred in excluding evidence about the lack of environmental h...
A district court held that environmental groups may go forward with their CWA lawsuit against a rail carrier for allowing coal dust from open-top rail cars to be released into U.S. waterways. At issue was whether coal dust from rail cars that falls onto land, rather than directly into the waters, of...
A district court held a mining company liable under SMCRA and the CWA for discharging excessive amounts of selenium into the waters of West Virginia. The company argued that the CWA's permit shield defense protected it from liability because selenium was not a pollutant whose discharge was limited u...
The Ninth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers did not violate the CWA or NEPA when it issued a dredge and fill permit necessary for a mineral sands mining project near Coos Bay, Oregon. An environmental group argued that the Corps should have prepared an EIS, rather than an EA and FON...
A district court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers could exercise jurisdiction under the CWA over wetlands contained in a developer's proposed residential site. The developer had initially asked the court to enter declaratory judgment that the wetlands were not subject to federal jurisdicti...