The injection of organic chemical wastes into subsurface wells whose waters are not alleged to flow into or otherwise affect surface waters does not constitute a "discharge of a pollutant" within the meaning of §301(a) of the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. The legislative h...
A complaint seeking to collect civil money penalties for alleged water pollution discharges in violation of an NPDES permit and an EPA order is dismissed with leave to amend. Section 309(d) of Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments does not provide for a fine of $10,000 per day for each sepa...
Interior Department regulations imposing summer-season weekend restrictions on commercial fishing at portions of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore are remanded to the agency for further proceedings concerning, inter alia, the impact of the regulation on the cultural heritage of affected fishermen....
This unanimous en banc opinion on the merits follows the court of appeals' temporary opinion, 4 ELR 20598, on its stay of the district court's injunction, 4 ELR 20573, which had ordered Reserve to cease any further discharge of asbestos-bearing taconite wastes into Lake Superior from its plant at Si...
The EPA Administrator neither misinterpreted congressional intent nor violated the Constitution in making the enforcement penalties of §113 of the Clean Air Act applicable to the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania for any failure by it to implement the Philadelphia Transportation Plan. Although §113 may...
Primarily because of the inadequacies of an environmental impact statement (EIS), the court issues a preliminary injunction against a North Carolina secondary highway improvement project funded in part by the Federal Highway Administration. Although the project EIS was not vitiated by having been pr...
The Second Circuit Court of Appeals reverses and remands a lower court's dismissal of a complaint alleging that the Navy's dumping of polluted dredge spoil at the New London dump site in Long Island Sound violates both NEPA and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972. In view of t...
The court upholds a decision by the Adirondack Park Agency to prohibit boathouses in its approval of plans to develop private property fronting on a lake used as a part of a scenic waterway within the park and designated a recreational river by state statute. Because the act creating the agency esta...
The Environmental Protection Agency is without authority under the Clean Air Act to require the state of Maryland to enact a vehicle retrofit program and establish bikeways as part of the Baltimore Transportation Control plan. The canons of statutory construction dictate this interpretation of the A...
A local planning board's preliminary approval of a subdivision plat for a dunes area is revoked. In determining that the parcel was not tidal wetlands within the meaning of a New York State law protecting such areas, the board failed to consider a major portion of the statutory definition of tidal w...