South Carolina's highest court held that the state's environmental agency violated state law when it negotiated an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Georgia Ports Authority before issuing a CWA §401 water quality certificate for a proposed expansion project for Savannah Harbor...

A Texas appellate court held that sovereign immunity bars an individual's lawsuit against the board members of a local reclamation district claiming that their activities caused a lake to be substantially drained during 2008 and for most of the years 2009 through 2011. As a governmental agency and p...

A California appellate court held that a water control board order that regulates waste from existing milk cow dairies violates the state's antidegradation policy. The order prohibits the further degradation of groundwater, as is required by the state’s antidegradation policy, but it does not proh...

A California appellate court upheld a local water board's $250,000 administrative civil liability order issued against a developer for CWA permit violations. The board issued the order after concluding that the developer discharged sediment-laden waters into ephemeral drainages adjacent to a constru...

The Eleventh Circuit held it lacked jurisdiction over several petitions for review of an EPA decision that allows a water district to transfer water from the polluted canals of the Everglades Agricultural Area into Lake Okeechobee without a CWA discharge permit. CWA §509(b)(1)(E) grants original ju...

The U.S. Supreme Court vacates and remands for further proceeding two Sixth Circuit opinions holding that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) had jurisdiction over state wetlands adjacent to a tributary of traditional navigable waters but separated by a berm, and wetlands lying near ditches...

A district court held that the CAA preempts individuals' tort law action against a coal-fired power plant for property damage stemming from the plant's air emissions. In essence, the individuals' complaint attacks the plant's air emissions and asks the court to regulate them. But the CAA provides a ...

A district court held that utilities violated CAA §112(g) by upgrading an existing power plant in Lamar, Colorado, from a natural gas-fired plant into a coal-fired one without receiving a maximum achievable control technology (MACT) determination. When the state environmental agency first issued th...

A district court denied a company's motion to dismiss an environmental group's CAA citizen suit against it for building seven compressor stations without first obtaining a nonattainment new source review permit. The company claimed that it properly applied for and received less stringent permits fro...