Just before the Thanksgiving holiday EPA issued draft guidance regarding when a discharge of a “pollutant” to groundwater is the “functional equivalent” of a discharge to a Water of the United States requiring a NPDES permit...more
11/28/2023
/ Clean Water Act ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
New Guidance ,
NPDES ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Waste Treatment Facilities ,
Waters of the United States
Yesterday, I spoke with Sarah Mattalian, an Inside EPA reporter writing a story about the suggestion by an EPA official that EPA might require additional PFAS investigations and clean up at properties that had already been...more
11/15/2023
/ Brownfield Properties ,
CERCLA ,
Chemicals ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ,
Investigations ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Remediation ,
Site Remediation ,
Soil
Yesterday, I spoke with Sarah Mattalian, an Inside EPA reporter writing a story about the suggestion by an EPA official that EPA might require additional PFAS investigations and clean up at properties that had already been...more
This week Judge Gergel tentatively approved the $1.2 billion settlement between DuPont (and related companies) and water suppliers now dealing with the fact that EPA and many States have concluded that the most minute...more
8/24/2023
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Clean-Up Costs ,
Drinking Water ,
DuPont ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Settlement ,
Water Supplies
This morning the Supreme Court of the United States heard from the Sacketts of Idaho for the second time. For sixteen years the Sacketts have been in the Federal Courts in connection with their attempt to build a house on a...more
Bobby Magill of Bloomberg has published a concise summary of the two hours in the Supreme Court yesterday during which attorneys for the United States of America and the Sacketts of Idaho were grilled on the reach of the...more
In April of 2020 the Supreme Court of the United States answered a yes or no question with a maybe. The question: does a discharge to groundwater require a permit under the Federal Clean Water Act....more
For years almost 2000 plaintiffs have been litigating in Federal Court in South Carolina against dozens of manufacturers and distributors of fire-fighting aqueous film-forming foams (AFFFs) that contain perfluorooctanoic acid...more
Just before the July 4th holiday, two Judges on a Ninth Circuit panel reversed their earlier conclusion that conveying contaminated groundwater can give rise to RCRA liability for the "transportation" of a "solid waste". The...more
A little over a month ago EPA's Science Advisory Board decided "EPA could benefit from SAB review of the science supporting [EPA's] proposed definition of Waters of the United States.” As many of you know, EPA's proposal is...more
But the less good news is that New York's first offshore wind project has to deal with endless NIMBY challenges at all after doing the work necessary to obtain the many federal, state and local permits the project needs, all...more
Late yesterday, Federal Judge Susan Oki Mollway, of the District of Hawaii, ruled that the County of Maui needs a Federal Clean Water Act NPDES permit for its groundwater discharge of treated water from its waste water...more
In April of 2020, Justice Breyer, delivering the Supreme Court's opinion in Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, told us that "the traditional common-law method, making decisions that provide examples that in turn lead to ever more...more
The United States Supreme Court’s April 23 decision in County of Maui v. Hawai’i Wildlife Fund (https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/18-260_i4dk.pdf) proves that legislating is best done by the Congress, not the...more
4/24/2020
/ 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 ,
Permits ,
Point Sources ,
Remand ,
SCOTUS ,
Vacated ,
Waters of the United States