EPA slashes federally protected waters by more than half after Supreme Court ruling

CNN – August 29

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) on Tuesday released a new rule that reduces the number of federally protected waters by more than half following a Supreme Court decision in May rolling back protections for U.S. wetlands. The rule invalidates an earlier definition of what constitutes “waters of the United States” or “WOTUS” after the Supreme Court ruled that Clean Water Act protections extend only to “wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights.” The rule could impact up to 63% of U.S. wetlands by acreage and around 1.2 million to 4.9 million miles of ephemeral streams. An ephemeral stream is one that typically only has water flowing through it during and immediately after rain events. The newly finalized rule means the Corps can resume issuing jurisdictional determinations that had been paused after the Supreme Court decision.

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Ninth Circuit halts gold drilling project in eastern Sierra Nevada

Courthouse News Service – August 28

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals last Friday halted an exploratory gold drilling project in the eastern Sierra Nevada near Mammoth Lakes that was set to begin this week. Kore Mining Ltd.’s proposed project would have involved drilling twelve 600-foot-deep holes spread across some 1,900 acres, requiring vegetation clearing and less than a mile of temporary access roads. Four environmental groups sued Kore Mining and the U.S. Forest Service in 2021, arguing the drilling would impact area groundwater that feeds into the Owens River and cause the bi-state sage grouse to abandon its habitat. A federal judge in March sided with the defendants. The plaintiffs appealed, leading the Ninth Circuit to reverse the trial court’s decision after a hearing on August 24.

3M’s $10.3 billion PFAS settlement gets preliminary approval

Reuters – August 30

3M on Tuesday secured preliminary approval for a $10.3 billion settlement resolving hundreds of claims by U.S. public water providers that the company polluted drinking water with perfluoroalkyl and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), less than a day after a group of 22 states and territories dropped their objections to the deal. U.S. District Judge Richard Gergel in Charleston, South Carolina, held that the settlement is “sufficiently fair, reasonable, and adequate” to justify approval. California and several other states and U.S. territories that had objected to the deal said in a separate filing on Monday that they still contend 3M should be paying more to settle the cases, even though the states no longer formally object to the settlement.

Amid new spills and stink, U.S. senators request millions more to fix Tijuana sewage crisis

The San Diego Union-Tribune – August 30

California’s senators are urging Congress to appropriate $310 million in new emergency funding to address rampant sewage pollution that flows from Tijuana to San Diego’s South County shoreline. This Tuesday, Senators Alex Padilla and Dianne Feinstein called on Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Senator Patty Murray, chair of the Senate Appropriations Committee, to include the funds in an upcoming emergency supplemental bill. The $310 million in new funding would supplement $300 million that has already been secured to double the capacity of the South Bay International Wastewater Treatment Plant in San Diego and would help pay for a $630 million strategy federal environmental regulators in California said would help address the issue. The strategy, in part, involves installing a pumping system in the Tijuana River to prevent contaminated flows from fouling shorelines as far north as Coronado.

State board rejects Cemex petition on water application

The Signal – August 30

The California Water Resources Control Board dismissed a request this Wednesday by Cemex, a multinational mining company looking to extract 56 million tons of aggregate from Soledad Canyon. Cemex had asked the Board to reconsider its decision to re-notice a decades-old water permit application by which Cemex seeks rights to divert water from the Santa Clara River in connection with its decades-long effort to open a new mine.