The Seventh Circuit upheld a dredge and fill permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a highway project that crosses wetlands in Indiana. The Corps adequately considered practicable alternatives when it issued the permit. Although the Corps has an independent responsibility to enforce t...

The Ninth Circuit reversed a lower court decision dismissing a conservation group's CWA citizen suit alleging that a scrap metal company violated California's general NPDES permit for industrial stormwater at three of its scrap recycling facilities. The lower court dismissed the case, holding that C...

The Sixth Circuit vacated a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) rule exempting from the Clean Water Act's (CWA's) national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permitting requirements pesticides applied in accordance with the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act. The ...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's APA lawsuit against EPA challenging 40 C.F.R. §124.55(b), which pertains to state certification of discharge permits issued by the Agency under the CWA. Specifically, the group challenged the portion of §124.55(b) that prohibits EPA from modifyin...

The Fourth Circuit upheld the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' decision to issue a CWA §404 fill permit to a surface mine in West Virginia. Environmental groups challenged the permit on two grounds. First, they argued that the Corps made "a material factual error" and "misapprehended" the baseline con...

A district court dismissed as time barred environmental groups' CWA and APA claims challenging EPA's list of dispersants and other projects that may be used in the event of an oil spill. The groups asserted that the list, called the NCP Product Schedule, fails to specify the waters or quantities in ...

A district court denied EPA's motion to dismiss a poultry farmer's lawsuit against the Agency seeking a declaratory judgment that farmyard stormwater runoff is statutorily exempt from regulation as an agricultural stormwater discharge. In 2011, EPA issued a compliance order to the farmer requiring h...

The D.C. Circuit upheld a consent decree that established a schedule for EPA to initiate notice-and-comment rulemaking and make a formal decision whether to promulgate a new rule revising certain effluent limitations and effluent limitations guidelines under the CWA. Below, an association of energy ...

The Sixth Circuit struck down the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' reissuance of nationwide permit 21, which authorizes surface coal mining operations to discharge dredged and fill material into waters of the United States. An environmental group challenged the permit, alleging that the cumulative-impa...

The D.C. Circuit reversed a lower court decision that EPA exceeded its authority under CWA §404(c) when it invalidated an existing U.S. Army Corps of Engineer permit authorizing a mining company to discharge fill material from its mountaintop coal mine into two nearby streams. In its post-perm...