The Fifth Circuit held that the CWA does not provide citizens the right to sue to enforce the conditions of §404 permits. Environmental groups filed a citizen suit against the Atchafalaya Basin Program, alleging that it violated its dredge and fill permit for Bayou Postillion in Iberia Parish, ...

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a lower court decision that a Native American tribe was not entitled to attorney fees in an underlying case in which it sought to enjoin a Florida water district from pumping polluted canal water into Lake Okeechobee. In that case, the lower court found in favor of the tr...

A district court held 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. Specifically, EPA withdrew the specific...

The U.S. Supreme Court held that property owners may bring a civil action under the APA to challenge EPA's issuance of a CWA §309 compliance order that directs them to restore their property immediately pursuant to an EPA work plan. The APA provides for judicial review of final agency action for wh...

A district court held that EPA violated the CWA when it failed to review Oregon's nonpoint source rules. The nonpoint source provisions create exemptions for many sources of pollution in Oregon's waters, including agriculture, forestry, and grazing. EPA claimed that the regulations at issue were...

A district court held that under a 1997 consent decree resolving CWA, RCRA, and state-law violations at a steel mill, the current owner is not liable for remediating any discharges that occurred prior to its purchase of the mill out of the previous owner's bankruptcy, but that it must conduct a site...

The Fourth Circuit upheld an injunction requiring the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection to obtain NPDES permits for reclamation efforts at abandoned coal mining sites. The text of the CWA, as well as corresponding EPA regulations, confirm that the permit requirements apply...

A district court upheld EPA's rule setting numeric nutrient criteria for Florida except in two respects: the stream criteria and the default downstream-protection criteria for unimpaired lakes. In 2009, recognizing that the state's narrative criterion was insufficient to control Florida's widesp...

A New York trial court held that the state environmental agency's general permit for stormwater discharges from municipal separate storm sewer systems (MS4) violates the CWA and state law. By allowing discharges based on an applicant's notice of intent (NOI) to discharge, the permitting scheme c...

A district court held that a mining company is liable for discharging arsenic and iron into a nearby creek in violation of its NPDES permit. The company did not deny or admit that it is in violation of its permit. Instead, it argued that the environmental group that filed suit against it lacked ...