A district court, on remand from the First Circuit, dismissed environmental groups' CWA claim against the operators of four hydroelectric dams along the Kennebec River. The groups alleged that the operators are in violation of their water quality certifications, and thus the CWA, because they failed...

A district court granted summary judgment in favor of a coal company, thereby dismissing environmental groups' CWA claim that the company violated its NPDES permit. The dispute centered on the parties' competing interpretations of a boilerplate condition of all of the company's NPDES permits that pr...

The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision ordering EPA to determine whether new water quality standards were necessary to control nitrogen and phosphorus pollution in the mainstem of the Mississippi River and the Northern Gulf of Mexico. The case arose after EPA denied environme...

The Eighth Circuit held that a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jurisdictional determination (JD) is a final agency action under the APA, thereby creating a split between the circuits. The case arose after a company sought to mine peat from wetland property owned by two affiliated companies in northwest...

A district court held that EPA does not have a mandatory duty to review an amendment to the Pennsylvania Sewage Facilities Act under the CWA. The amendment allows the use of certain on-lot sewage systems to satisfy the state's antidegradation requirements. An environmental group claimed the amendmen...

A district court dismissed environmentalists' claim that EPA should have reviewed the entirety of Florida's impaired water rule (IWR), not just the portion that constitutes a new or revised water quality standard. States retain discretion to enact and to enforce—without EPA’s review and approval...

The Eleventh Circuit remanded the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' conclusion that Nationwide Permit 21 (NWP 21), a general permit that allows surface coal mining operations to discharge dredged or fill materials into navigable waters, would have no more than minimal environmental effects under NEPA an...