A district court held that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated NEPA and the ESA in approving certain operations at a fish hatchery on Oregon's Sandy River. NMFS regulations provide an exemption for the otherwise unlawful take of anadromous fish caused by a hatchery's artificial pro...

A district court denied environmental groups' motions for a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction to halt the Idaho Department of Fish and Game's wolf trapping and hunting program in the Frank Church-River of No Return Wilderness area. Since December 2013, seven gray wolves have bee...

A district court granted EPA's motion to amend a consent decree requiring it to adopt numeric criteria for Florida's waters unless the state does so first. Florida adopted new nutrient criteria, but for some waters, the criteria are not numeric. EPA then sought to modify the consent decree so that t...

The Fifth Circuit upheld the conviction and sentencing of the former owner of a wastewater treatment facility who allowed the disposal of untreated wastewater into U.S. waters without a permit. The former owner argued that the lower court erred in excluding evidence about the lack of environmental h...

A district court held that environmental groups may go forward with their CWA lawsuit against a rail carrier for allowing coal dust from open-top rail cars to be released into U.S. waterways. At issue was whether coal dust from rail cars that falls onto land, rather than directly into the waters, of...

A district court held a mining company liable under SMCRA and the CWA for discharging excessive amounts of selenium into the waters of West Virginia. The company argued that the CWA's permit shield defense protected it from liability because selenium was not a pollutant whose discharge was limited u...