Editors' Summary: Pfiesteria piscicida, a sometimes toxic microorganism, is responsible for the death of millions of fish in Delaware, Maryland, North Carolina, and Virginia. Although the problem of Pfiesteria-related fish kills is associated with the Mid-Atlantic region, other toxic microorganisms have threatened fish and marine wildlife throughout the world. Scientists attribute this "global epidemic" of toxic microbes to excessive nutrient loading from nonpoint sources of pollution.

Water scarcity is no longer a threat, it is a reality. Increasing populations throughout the country and the world are putting increased pressure on existing supplies of freshwater. Cities, states, and regions are scrambling to find solutions to this burgeoning problem. The impact of drought, which has been felt not only in the typically dry Southwest, but also in the humid Southeast this past summer, compounds the problem. So, what mechanisms evolve to help alleviate the problem?

Buried deep within the several thousand page Omnibus Consolidated Appropriations Act signed by President Clinton in the waning days of the 104th Congress are the first significant amendments in a decade to the much-debated Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA or Superfund). CERCLA is the federal law that creates a broad class of parties potentially liable for expenses incurred in cleaning up sites contaminated with hazardous substances.

Editors' Summary: This Article is the last in a three-part series intended to supplement Federal Wetlands Law, a primer that ELR published in 1993 and subsequently incorporated into the Wetlands Deskbook. The Article, which refers to the primer but stands on its own, focuses primarily on where wetlands law has changed since the primer's publication. The Article first addresses judicial review of agency wetlands decisions, including a proposed administrative appeal process for U.S.

Until the 1970s, federal and state laws did little to control the harmful water quality impacts of mining exploration, and mine wastes were regularly deposited wherever was convenient, including directly into streams. As a result, one enduring legacy of the boom and bust mining cycles in the United States from the mid-1800s to 1970 is widespread and unmitigated water pollution from inactive or abandoned mines.

The last 18 months have produced particularly interesting juridical and administrative pronouncements in the areas of Clean Water Act (CWA or Act) jurisdiction, permits, standards, citizen suits, and other enforcement. On the jurisdictional front, we learned that "deep ripping" constitutes an "addition" of a pollutant by a "point source." We also learned that 25-year-old cases from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C.

Since the enactment of the Clean Water Act (CWA or Act) 28 years ago, the federal courts have been called upon to sort out the respective roles of the federal and state governments in connection with numerous aspects of the statute's implementation and enforcement. Congress has superimposed an additional layer of complexity on the CWA experiment in creative federalism—the citizen suit provision.

Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc. may prove to be the most important environmental decision since Chevron, U.S.A., Inc. v. Natural Resources Defense Council. Laidlaw's primary significance lies in its discussion of the injury component of the U.S. Supreme Court's now familiar three-part standing test.

In its first week of business during the new millennium, the U.S. Supreme Court decided Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Environmental Services (TOC), Inc., and provided important clarifications about the law of standing in environmental citizen suits. Specifically, the Court rejected the narrow view of environmental injury-in-fact advocated by Justice Scalia and instead adhered to the broader view of injury-in-fact established in a nonenvironmental context by the Court's decision in Federal Elections Commission v. Akins.

As law students frequently discover during exams, the law of standing is easy to state but hard to apply. The basic rules are simple and well-settled. Under Article III of the U.S. Constitution, in order to invoke federal jurisdiction, the plaintiff must demonstrate the existence of an "injury-in-fact" that is "legally cognizable," "fairly traceable" to the defendant, and capable of being "redressed" by the court. Each of the terms in quotation marks seems clear enough on the surface but has proved remarkably tricky in practice.