The U.S. Supreme Court holds that the national pollutant discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit program applies not only to point sources that generate pollutants, but also to point sources that transfer pollutants originating elsewhere. The definition of a point source as a "conveyance" in Cle...

A district court dismissed an environmental group's CWA action against a poultry farm claiming that it illegally discharged chicken litter into tributaries of the Chesapeake Bay. The group claimed that chicken litter, which is alleged to contain various pollutants, was discharged without a permit fr...

A district court held that EPA cannot regulate stormwater as a pollutant under the CWA. According to the court, the language of CWA §303(d)(1)(C) is clear. EPA may set TMDLs to regulate pollutants, and pollutants are carefully defined. Because stormwater runoff is not a pollutant under the Act, EPA...

The U.S. Supreme Court reversed a lower court decision holding a water district liable under the CWA for violating its municipal separate storm sewer system permit. The lower court ruled that the violations occurred when the polluted water detected at the monitoring stations flowed out of concrete-l...

A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service violated its travel management rule, but not NEPA, when it issued its record of decision approving the Stanislaus National Forest Motorized Travel Management EIS. The agency looked at a reasonable range of alternatives to the proposed action, proper...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's adoption of the Idaho Roadless Rule, which creates different categories of land within Idaho's 9.3 million acres of inventoried roadless areas. The court affirmed and adopted as its own a lower court ruling that also approved the rule. FWS's biologi...