A district court held the CWA's citizen suit provision does not allow for judicial review of EPA's decision to disapprove Maine's water quality standards. In 2015, EPA issued a formal decision in which it approved some of Maine’s water quality standards but disapproved three of Maine’s human hea...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that the Hawaii Pesticides Law impliedly preempts a county ordinance that seeks to regulate pesticides and genetically engineered plants. The ordinance would have required commercial farmers to maintain “buffer zones” between crops to which pesti...

A district court held that an Illinois excavation company was liable under the CWA for discharging pollutants into a river without a permit. The company discharged concrete, dirt, and other pollutants on the banks and bed of the Green River during its construction and maintenance of a levee. The com...

The Sixth Circuit, in litigation over the "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule, held that an internal U.S. Army Corps of Engineers memorandum critical of the rule's technical analysis may be included in the record. Petitioners argued that the litigation record omits several materials that were...

The Pennsylvania Supreme Court struck down as unconstitutional portions of a 2012 law governing oil and gas operations in the Marcellus Shale. This is the second time the law, known as Act 13, has been reviewed by the court: in 2013, the court struck down provisions that limited the zoning powers of...

A district court held that environmental groups have standing to sue EPA under the APA and CWA for its failure to disapprove West Virginia's §303(d) list, which lacks TMDLs for waterbodies previously identified as "biologically impaired." The groups' members use some, but not all, impaired waterbod...

A district court held that environmental groups may go forward with some, but not all, of their CWA claims against TVA concerning coal ash contamination stemming from a coal-fired power plant near Gallatin, Tennessee. The groups allege that TVA knew that the ash ponds' construction and the area's to...

The Supreme Court of California held that the state's moratorium on the use of suction dredges to mine gold from rivers was not preempted by federal mining law. The case arose after an individual challenged his conviction for the possession and unpermitted use of a suction dredge. He argued that the...

The Fifth Circuit reversed a lower court decision that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers must bear all the costs of deauthorizing the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet (MR-GO), instead holding that the Corps' cost-sharing formula with the state of Louisiana was reasonable. The Corps has completed buildin...