The Ninth Circuit held that Maui County is liable for illegally discharging treated wastewater that seeped through groundwater into the Pacific Ocean. The County owns and operates four wells at the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility (“LWRF”), the principal municipal wastewater treatment pla...

The Michigan Court of Appeals held that a class action case involving the Flint water crisis can proceed. Citizens of Flint formed a class and sued Michigan officials for their "deliberate" decision to expose them to toxic water from the Flint River. The citizens alleged that their due process right...

The First Circuit held that stormwater running off parking lots and other paved surfaces at Harvard, MIT, and other Boston-area universities will remain unregulated even though it may be polluting the Charles River and its tributaries. An environmental group sought to compel EPA to regulate the disc...

The California Supreme Court held that the charges a California city must pay to a local water district for groundwater conservation activities do not require voter or property owner approval. By statute, charges for pumping groundwater for nonagricultural uses generally must be at least three times...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court's dismissal of a tribe's NEPA challenge to a DOI guidance that did not consider its interest when allocating the water rights of the Colorado River. The tribe contended that it was unlawfully excluded from DOI 2001 and 2008 guidances that outlined how water is ...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the criminal conviction of a Montana resident for violations of the CWA. The resident was sentenced to 18 months in prison and had to pay a $130,000 fine for digging ponds and diverting a creek onto his land in Montana and the neighboring Beaverhead-Deerlodge National Forest...

A district court held that a water pollution case against carpet manufacturers belonged in state court as complete diversity did not exist, rejecting the carpet manufacturers' claim of fraudulent joinder. A sewer board (Board) brought suit against various manufacturers, suppliers, distributors, and ...

A New Jersey appellate court held that the state environmental agency properly ordered a theme park to decommission a well used for drinking water after it twice tested positive for E. coli. The well in question tested positive in October 2010, and again in September 2011. The theme park requested t...

A district court held that the city of Flint, Michigan, must choose a long-term water source and gave the city a week in which to do so. After the events of the Flint water crisis, EPA notified the city that it would need to make a decision about a long-term source of drinking water, probably before...

A district court held that a township's Home Rule Charter prohibiting deposition of any waste from oil and gas extraction within the township and invalidating any state permit to the contrary was preempted by the SDWA. In 2014, EPA granted an oil company a permit for an underground injection control...