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
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
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
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
10/10/2023
/ Discharge of Pollutants ,
Drinking Water ,
Environmental Litigation ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Georgia ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
New Legislation ,
PFAS ,
Settlement ,
State Legislatures ,
Water
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
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
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
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, 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
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
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
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
8/30/2023
/ Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Jurisdiction ,
Navigable Waters ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Surface Water ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
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
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
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
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
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
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 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
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
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
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 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
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
7/20/2023
/ Biden Administration ,
Center for Biological Diversity ,
Clean Water Act ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Dredge and Fill ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Proposed Rules ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 404 ,
Trump Administration ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
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