As students around the country journey home for Thanksgiving break before final exams, EPA has reported on its progress implementing its ambitious PFAS road map. It was just over a year ago that EPA unveiled that road map and...more
Yesterday a three judge panel of the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia heard from lawyers for the Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER) and the Environmental Protection Agency...more
While many of us were focused on the 2022 elections, the Conservation Law Foundation and the Charles River Watershed Association again sued the Environmental Protection Agency because EPA isn't regulating indirect stormwater...more
I was surprised to see a former EPA official opining that identifying two of the hundreds of forever chemicals known collectively as PFAS as "hazardous substances" under Federal law would "increase legal liability". ...more
A Maine Trial Court Judge has denied New England Clean Energy Connect permission to complete its project to transmit Canadian hydropower to the United States saying that NECEC hadn't demonstrated that it will suffer...more
The Boston Globe is reporting this morning on exciting plans to improve the Boston Common, America's first public park. The Common and its neighbor, the Public Garden, are on the top of any list of the most special public...more
This week a Federal Judge in Montana threw out a NGO's citizen suit against the Yellowstone Mountain Club for what the NGO claimed were unpermitted discharges of nitrogen to a Water of the United States. I wrote about this...more
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
As millions in Florida face the wrath of our warming oceans in the guise of Hurricane Ian, Inside EPA is reporting that enough Democrats and Republicans opposed Senator Manchin's proposal to streamline the permitting of...more
The Federal government has proposed to ban fast ferries to Martha's Vineyard and Nantucket between November 1 and May 30 of each year in an effort to protect the 350 North Atlantic Right Whales remaining on the planet....more
Several months ago Mayor Wu announced that she was putting the planning of the Downtown waterfront on ice so the administration could focus on the East Boston waterfront. Now the Administration is demanding that the...more
As the climate crisis continues, we're now on the verge of meeting our energy needs through a combination of water, wind, and sun generated electricity. Sadly many Federal and State permits are needed to get that cleaner...more
Many years ago the Conservation Law Foundation sued the Federal Environmental Protection Agency in an attempt to cause EPA to exercise its "residual designation authority" under the Federal Clean Water Act to require permits...more
EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have asked the White House Office of Management and Budget to review its most recent attempt to define "Waters of the United States". That definition determines the reach of the Federal...more
Benjamin Storrow's story in E&E News on the challenges faced by the New England Clean Energy Connect project is worth a read. He reports that it would be the third largest supplier of electricity in New England. ...more
Just before the Labor Day holiday, a Massachusetts Superior Court Judge allowed the Nantucket Conservation Commission to move one step closer to causing what the Town's expert calls dramatic shoreline realignment on 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
Maine's Supreme Judicial Court has held that a 2021 referendum that may have killed the New England Clean Energy Connect project may also have violated the project's "vested rights" in violation of the Maine Constitution....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
Within days of Office of Management and Budget and Science Advisory Board blessings, EPA has formally proposed that PFOA and PFOS, two of the hundreds of "forever chemicals" collectively known as PFAS, be included among the...more
Now that EPA has designated as "hazardous substances" at least two of the hundreds of "forever chemicals" known collectively as PFAS, does it make sense for the hundreds if not thousands of cities and towns across the country...more
This week EPA's Science Advisory Board issued its final report on EPA's assessment of the risks associated with drinking water containing two of the hundreds of forever chemicals collectively known as PFAS. Unless you have a...more
EPA has been cleared by the White House Office of Management and Budget to list two of the hundreds of chemicals collectively known as PFAS as "hazardous substances" under the Federal Superfund statute. This is one of the...more
A committee of the prestigious National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine this week recommended that the blood of perhaps tens of millions of Americans be tested for the presence of the ubiquitous "forever"...more