Clean Water Action v. Pruitt
A district court dismissed an environmental groups' lawsuit challenging EPA's decision to stay a 2015 CWA rule concerning effluent limitations for steam electric power plants. The rule addressed effluent limitations and standards for six waste streams generated by steam electric power plants: bottom...
Upstate Forever v. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P.
The Fourth Circuit held that citizens may bring suit alleging a violation of the CWA when the source of the pollution is no longer releasing the pollutant, but the pollutant continues to be discharged into surface waterways via groundwater. In late 2014, several hundred thousand gallons of gasoline ...
EQT Production Co. v. Department of Environmental Protection
Pennsylvania's highest court held that the $10,000/day civil penalty under the Clean Streams Law does not apply to each day that pollutants leaked from an impoundment remain in the groundwater and then leach into other waters of the Commonwealth. The case arose after the state environmental agency a...
Environmental Law & Policy Center v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
A district court held it could not rule on the merits as to whether EPA violated the APA when it approved Ohio's 2016 impaired water list, but nevertheless remanded the case to EPA so it could approve or disapprove Ohio's incomplete CWA §303 list. Under the CWA, states must submit to EPA a list of ...
Friends of the Santa Clara River v. United States Army Corps of Engineers
The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of a CWA §404 permit authorizing the discharge of materials into the Santa Clara River as part of a large-scale residential, commercial, and industrial development project in Los Angeles County. The proposed project would encompass...