The Clean Water Act (CWA) provides various means of enforcement against violators of its permitting programs, including sanctions for those guilty of criminal negligence. The chief programs in this regard are the National...more
As we have reported in previous articles, controversy over whether the Clean Water Act (CWA) regulates discharges of pollutants that travel through groundwater into surface waters has led to significant litigation across the...more
5/8/2020
/ Appeals ,
Clean Water Act ,
Direct Discharge ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Functional Equivalent ,
Groundwater ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Navigable Waters ,
NPDES ,
Permits ,
Point Sources ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Vacated ,
Waters of the United States
In the evolving Sierra Club v. Virginia Electric & Power Company case, the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit has just reversed a Virginia-based federal district court on the key issue of whether a coal ash...more
10/2/2018
/ Clean Water Act ,
Coal ,
Coal Ash ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Jurisdiction ,
Landfills ,
NPDES ,
Reversal ,
Sierra Club ,
Water Pollution
New Source Review (“NSR”) remains a focus of enforcement for EPA. Between last year and now, EPA finalized eight settlements with manufacturers and one with a utility, asserting NSR violations for allegedly not obtaining a...more
5/3/2018
/ Clean Air Act ,
Clean Water Act ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Groundwater Management Plan ,
Landfills ,
Manufacturers ,
Methane ,
Mining ,
NPDES ,
POTWs
EPA recently announced that it is seeking comments on how to address one of the more vexing issues involving EPA’s jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”): whether discharged wastewater or stormwater that passes...more
A major skirmish in the long-running legal battle over the scope of protected waters under the federal Clean Water Act (“Act”) has just ended with the U.S. Supreme Court decision in National Association of Manufacturers v....more
2/14/2018
/ Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Navigable Waters ,
NPDES ,
Oil Spills ,
Rapanos v US ,
SCOTUS ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
It’s a bad day when you find out that your facility has been leaking wastewater, wastes, petroleum product or chemicals. But if the leak went into the soil and the groundwater first, rather than a nearby creek, are you liable...more
Most industrial facilities will, at some point, be inspected by an environmental regulatory agency. Generally, regulatory agencies have authority to enter public or private property that is governed by an environmental...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit recently resurrected EPA’s embattled Water Transfers Rule (“WTR”) in a case particularly important to municipal water suppliers and others engaged in interbasin...more
President Trump has wasted no time in acting on his environmental agenda. On January 24, his second working day in office, the President signed two Executive Orders giving the green light to construction of the Keystone and...more