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This is NOT a drill! EPA is going to require billions of dollars of PFAS remediation in many places, including at already...

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

Could the longest running controversy in environmental law be entering its last years?

Sam Hess of Inside EPA is reporting that Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate might be ready to work on legislation ending the longest running controversy in environmental law – the decades long battle...more

There once was, and may still be, a coastal resilience project on Nantucket!

Over a year ago, a Massachusetts Superior Court Judge ordered the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund to comply with an order by the Nantucket Conservation Commission by removing the “soft” coastal bank stabilization project...more

Sunshine may be among the best disinfectants but these PFAS defendants are fighting to keep their settlement with Rome, Georgia...

Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously exclaimed sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Of course the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Rome News-Tribune endorse that proposition. And, the newspapers...more

Lessons we all need to learn from the Great Salt Lake Crisis

Those of us on the east coast have heard that the Great Salt Lake has receded to the verge of a public health crisis, including because toxins in the sediment that have been underwater for millennia may soon may soon be...more

ACKRat is asking the 1st Circuit Court of Appeals to stop the Vineyard Wind Project as time keeps on slippin', slippin',...

The Nantucket Residents Against Turbines, or ACKRat, have asked the First Circuit Court of Appeals to find that the Federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management and the National Marine Fisheries Service acted "arbitrarily and...more

A new battle is brewing in the war over the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act, this one over EPA's new Section 401 Water...

EPA is publishing its final rule specifying the role of States and Tribes in the Federal licensing or permitting of activities that may result in a "discharge" into a "Water of the United States". Like EPA's recent tenth...more

The Clean Water Act might now have a broader reach in States that challenged EPA's and the Corps' pre-Sackett WOTUS rule than in...

Sam Hess of Inside EPA reports that EPA and the Corps of Engineers are going to apply their tenth, post-Sackett, attempt to define Waters of the United States only in the states and territories that aren't subject to...more

This morning we have another climate emergency wake up call. We can't afford to hit the snooze button again.

This morning, everyone who lives or works near the Barrett Pond Park Dam in Leominster, Massachusetts has been told evacuate immediately. Yesterday a foot of rain fell on the area and the future of the dam is, at best,...more

9/12/2023  /  Climate Change , Dams , Flooding

Soon we'll have EPA guidance responding to the Supreme Court's Maui decision, but it may not be much.

The ever-vigilant Sam Hess of Inside EPA has posted an August presentation by an EPA official at the Association of Clean Water Administrators’ Annual Meeting.  That presentation says that EPA has drafted new guidance based...more

Instead of complaining about EPA's definitions of Waters of the United States, perhaps Congress might supply one of its own?

Sam Hess's report in Inside EPA paints a nuanced picture of the apparently never ending controversy over the reach of the Clean Water Act. I can't help but offer a few reactions....more

EPA & the Corps have published their 10th attempt to determine the reach of the Clean Water Act. Litigation is certain to follow.

Ahead of schedule, yesterday EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers published their tenth attempt to specify the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act. The only question now is will its opponents file amended complaints in...more

Really, that's the story you want to go with? EPA explains why it says "if" it designates PFOA and PFOS as hazardous substances...

One of the two things in EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative for PFAS that caught my eye also caught the eye of Suzanne Yohannan at Inside PFAS Policy. That thing was that EPA Assistant Administrator...more

The Federal Government says the 6th Circuit and 1st Circuit now have different Superfund rules but the Supreme Court shouldn't do...

Anyone who has been practicing environmental law for more than a few years has had a case requiring a dive into the black hole that is CERCLA's statute of limitations which specifies the time within which someone seeking to...more

PFAS Rulings in South Carolina & Michigan shine a light on the fact we have no idea what removing PFAS from our environment is...

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

I guess it makes sense that the Navy would need a Clean Water Act permit to fire munitions if the Forest Service needs one to...

Inside EPA is reporting that Potomac Riverkeeper and the United States Navy are discussing a settlement of the NGO's lawsuit alleging that the Navy's firing of munitions into the Potomac River without a NPDES permit violates...more

Two things about EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative for PFAS that caught my eye.

After less than a month on the job EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) Chief David Uhlmann this week released a memorandum outlining EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives (NECIs) for the...more

Was invoking the major questions doctrine really necessary for a 4th Circuit panel to agree fish aren't pollutants covered by the...

This week, in North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group, et al., v. Capt. Gaston LLC, a three judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a District Court Judge that when shrimpers use nets to catch...more

The Nantucket NIMBY's Clam Shack suit and the Martha's Vineyard NIMBY's Vineyard Wind suit seem to be over but these 2 rights...

The dog days of summer are apparently seeing the end of NIMBY lawsuits brought by Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard residents; the former seeking to deny us fried clams and soft ice cream and the latter seeking to deny us...more

Will EPA's 9th attempt to determine the reach of the Clean Water Act be the charm? The Waters Advocacy Coalition doesn't seem to...

Last week the Waters Advocacy Coalition sent to the heads of the Environmental Protection Administration and the Corps of Engineers many "recommendations" regarding EPA's and the Corps' post-Sackett attempt to determine the...more

So not only are NIMBYs delaying our essential transition to renewable energy, they're also taking lots of money out of our...

The Boston Globe reports that the cost of the critically important New England Clean Energy Connect project increased by over 50 percent to 1.5 billion dollars during the three years Avangrid, the project developer, battled...more

3M tried to resolve its PFAS liability to water suppliers for $12.5 BILLION and almost 1/2 the States (including MA) are...

In May I wrote about a manufacturer of Aqueous Film Forming Foam (AFFF) excused from the PFAS Multi-District Litigation in South Carolina because its PFAS-related liabilities might exceed its assets which is something for a...more

The Boston Globe reports another climate change casualty, it is still way too hard to protect ourselves against rising waters &...

The Boston Globe is following the Nantucket Current in reporting on another of the countless casualties of coastal erosion caused by our GHG-supercharged climate. Such reports have become common place over the past several...more

Surprising to see EPA now taking steps to make it easier for states to take over the Federal Government's dredge and fill permit...

I'm surprised to see the Biden Administration EPA moving forward right now with a rule proposed during the Trump Administration to allow states to take over responsibility for the permitting of "dredge and fill" activities...more

EPA made a mess exercising its Clean Water Act residual designation authority in MA. This week the Judge washed his hands of most...

This week Massachusetts Federal District Court Judge Richard Stearns dismissed two counts of the Conservation Law Foundation's and Charles River Watershed Association's lawsuit against EPA and stayed until September of next...more

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