The Eleventh Circuit affirmed a lower court decision upholding the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' 2012 decision to issue a general nationwide permit—NWP 21—authorizing discharges from certain coal mining activities into navigable waters. The 2012 version of NWP 21 contains two new provisions, a g...

A district court ordered EPA to promulgate revised water quality standards for Washington state by September 15, 2016, or, in the alternative, by November 15, 2016, if the state submits its own water quality standards by September 15. A key factor in determining the requisite water quality standards...

The D.C. Circuit upheld EPA's decision to invoke its veto authority under CWA §404(c) and withdraw two disposal sites from a CWA permit issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a mountaintop coal mining project in West Virginia. The areas withdrawn make up roughly 88% of the total discharge a...

The Supreme Court of California held that the state may enter and conduct environmental and geological studies and testing on more than 150 privately owned properties in the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta that the state might seek to acquire for construction of two new tunnels to deliver fresh water f...

The Fifth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, directed the Louisiana Supreme Court to define the meaning of "good faith" as it pertains to an underlying whistleblower suit. A deckhand working for a tugboat company alleged he was repeatedly ordered to dump oil and otherwise violate environmental laws...

The Fourth Circuit upheld the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' issuance of a dredge and fill permit to a surface coal mine. Environmental groups challenged the adequacy of the Corps' environmental review, arguing that the Corps violated NEPA and the CWA by failing to consider evidence that surface coal...

A New Jersey appellate court affirmed a lower court decision that dismissed as untimely shop owners' lawsuit against a town for injuries they allegedly suffered due to chemical vapors emanating from leaking USTs. Although the USTs belonged to the dry cleaner next door to the plaintiffs' shop, the ta...

The D.C. Circuit held that Alaska may not block any efforts by the United States to take tribal land into trust within Alaskan state borders. In 1971, the United States settled land claims staked by descendants of Alaskan aboriginal tribes. DOI interpreted that settlement as barring it from taking l...

The Ninth Circuit held that Washington state's management of barrier culverts, which allow streams to flow underneath roads, violated various Native American treaties from the 1850s and ordered the state to correct them. The "Stevens Treaties" were entered into in 1854-1855 between Native American t...

A district court, on motions for summary judgment, held that the owner of a farm violated the CWA when he allowed wetlands on his property to be tilled. The record shows that the farm discharged a pollutant to navigable waters from a point source without a permit. Soil is a pollutant, the wetlands o...