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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

The Ninth Circuit held that Maui County is liable for illegally discharging treated wastewater that seeped through groundwater into the Pacific Ocean. The County owns and operates four wells at the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility (“LWRF”), the principal municipal wastewater treatment pla...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the criminal conviction of a Montana resident for violations of the CWA. The resident was sentenced to 18 months in prison and had to pay a $130,000 fine for digging ponds and diverting a creek onto his land in Montana and the neighboring Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest...