PFAS in Focus: Forever-Engineering With Trent Stober, HDR - Reflections on Water Podcast
On-Demand Webinar | Flood or Drought? A Discussion of the Election’s Potential Legislative Impacts on the Water Sector
[WEBINAR] Fairly (or Unfairly?) Traceable: Are Discharges Through Groundwater Subject to the Clean Water Act?
Water Rights with Eric Garner: Prescriptive Rights
Context is Crucial in Examining BLM’s Proposed Rule for Fracking On Federal Land
As our understanding of the environment and anthropogenic impact grows, protection efforts increasingly spawn regulation. Media coverage of perceived harms to health and the environment and well-funded advocacy by...more
On November 20, 2023, a panel of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its opinion in Idaho Conservation League v. Poe, No. 22-35978. Therein, the Court upheld its previous interpretation of “discharged” in the context of...more
On November 21, 2023, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals issued its decision in Cottonwood Environmental Law Center vs. Edwards addressing various Clean Water Act issues. Its two key holdings were that (1) the district court...more
In recent years, Wisconsin generally has been a pro-policyholder jurisdiction when it comes to long-tail environmental coverage cases. That trend continues with a decision by a Wisconsin appellate court in a case involving...more
Both Congress and United States Environmental Protection Agency (“USEPA”) are working to address what some call a “PFAS contamination crisis.” Enforcement actions and lawsuits have so far focused on the companies that have...more
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) issued an October 2018 publication titled: Low Flow Statistics Tools – A How-To Handbook for NPDES Permit Writers (“Handbook”) - See EPA-833-B-18-001. EPA...more
The United States District Court for the Eastern District of California (“Court”) addressed in a November 16th Memorandum and Order (“Order”) the liability of an individual under certain federal and state environmental...more
My law firm colleague Jordan Wimpy undertook a presentation at the October 4th Arkansas Environmental Federation Annual Conference titled: Does a Discharge to Groundwater Require an NPDES Permit? (“Presentation”)...more
The Clean Water Act (CWA) is facing an identity crisis. In the past year, conflicting federal court decisions have created a circuit split as to whether the CWA regulates pollutant releases into groundwater that is...more
On September 24, 2018, the US Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit ruled that the Clean Water Act (CWA) does not require a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for the discharges of pollutants to...more
In two opinions issued on September 24, 2018, the Sixth Circuit ruled that discharges of a pollutant to surface waters through groundwater do not require a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, pursuant to...more
A recent decision by the U.S. Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals (Hawai'i Wildlife Fund v. County of Maui) created a new standard for permitting under the Clean Water Act — one that captures discharges from point sources through...more
Unpermitted point source discharges that reach navigable waters indirectly, via groundwater, may lead to Clean Water Act (CWA) liability according to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals (encompassing Maryland, Virginia, North...more
A Clean Water Act permit is required for discharging wastewater from injection wells into groundwater where wastewater is “fairly traceable” to navigable waters, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Hawai’i...more
On February 20, the Environmental Protection Agency published in the Federal Register a request for comments on a longstanding EPA policy regarding the question of whether and to what extent discharges to groundwater might be...more
A recent Ninth Circuit decision has expanded Clean Water Act (“CWA” or the “Act”) liability, holding that discharges to groundwater are actionable if there is a “fairly traceable” connection between the groundwater discharge...more
A recent ruling by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, which covers California, Oregon and several other western states, potentially extends Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction to require permits for point source discharges...more
On Feb. 1, 2018, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit issued a highly anticipated decision in Hawai’i Wildlife Fund v. County of Maui, No. 15-17447 (9th Cir. Feb. 1, 2018). At issue was whether the County of Maui...more
Property owners in California may have access to state funds for environmental cleanup of smaller brownfields projects. The money comes from two pieces of environmental legislation passed in 2014....more
Suggestions to Texas lessors after ExxonMobil v. Lazy R Ranch, et al: Claiming that you were not aware of contamination from oil spills you’ve know about for 20 years is a tough sell, and suing your long-time lessee for...more
The Clean Power Plan (“CPP”), and its companion new source review rule, is the Obama Administration’s signature regulation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions from power plants. Among other things, it requires states to put...more
The District of Columbia Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) on Oct. 28, 2016, published final rules governing the construction, maintenance and abandonment of wells. The new regulations became effective immediately...more
U.S. Supreme Court to Decide Whether Jurisdictional Determinations May be Appealed - The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers determines the presence or absence of wetlands and other “waters of the United States” on a...more
We have all heard the saying “ignorance is bliss,” but in the area of real property acquisition, the more important idiom is “what you don’t know can kill you.” That may be a bit dramatic, but what you don’t know about a...more
In a post last year, I discussed what I I thought was the dubious dismissal of a CERCLA cost recovery action in Stratford Holding, LLC v. Fog Cap Retail Investors LLC. ...more