ELR Citation: ELR 20131
No(s). 5:05-CV-293-C (N.D. Tex. Jun 28, 2006)

A court holds that the United States may not impose civil fines against a pipeline operator for an oil spill that impacted an intermittent stream several miles from the nearest navigable water. The court concludes that the United States lacked jurisdiction because the stream does not constitute a navigable water. In so holding, the court determines that the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Rapanos v. United States, No. 04-1034, 36 ELR 20116 (U.S. June 19, 2006), failed to elaborate on the "significant nexus" test, thereby requiring it to rely on prior reasoning of the Fifth Circuit. Based on the Fifth Circuit's decision in In re Needham, 354 F.3d 340, 34 ELR 20009 (5th Cir. 2003), the court holds that absent actual evidence that the site of the farthest traverse of the spill is navigable-in-fact or adjacent to an open body of navigable water, a significant nexus is not present under the law of the circuit. Here, the intermittent stream into which the spill occurred is not a navigable-in-fact water; nor is the creek with which the stream joins. The United States, therefore, lacks jurisdiction.