A Washington appellate court held that the developer of 30 residential waterfront lots must seek a permit under the Shoreline Management Act of 1971 prior to building private docks to accompany the new homes. Because the docks would be designed for the private, noncommercial use of the owners of...

A district court remanded to EPA its determination that several provisions of Florida's "impaired water rule" are not new or revised water quality standards and, thus, not subject to approval by the Agency. An environmental group argued that EPA's decision was arbitrary and capricious. In order ...

A district court held that a local sanitation department that owns and operates a complex sanitary sewer conveyance system and 13 wastewater treatment plants must pay penalties for the unintended discharge of sewage following heavy rainfall in the spring of 2010. The department previously entere...

A Pennsylvania appellate court enjoined for 120 days the effective date of a new state law, Act 13, that authorizes municipalities to regulate the location of oil and gas operations but not the manner in which they are operated. The court reasoned that municipalities must have an adequate opport...

The Eleventh Circuit upheld a restaurant manager's conviction for conspiring to illegally dump restaurant grease into U.S. waters in violation of the CWA. The evidence was easily sufficient to sustain a finding that he conspired to intentionally violate the CWA. He was the supervisor of four res...

The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing an environmental group's CWA action against a city for violations at its wastewater treatment plants. The lower court erred in ruling that a 2002 consent decree between the city and the U.S. government requiring the city t...

A California appellate court upheld a county board's adoption of a zoning ordinance pertaining to lot line adjustments. The ordinance continued the county's existing administrative practice of allowing lot line adjustments impacting four or fewer parcels to readjust lots included in a prior applicat...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision denying agricultural water users' claim that an irrigation district violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it adopted regulations for the distribution of water in the event of an actual or potential water shortag...