Clean Water Act (CWA)

A district court held that litter and manure washed from a farmyard into navigable waters due to a precipitation event is an agricultural stormwater discharge and not a point source discharge,…

The Seventh Circuit held that a town may not assess stormwater management fees on Indian lands located within the town's borders. The town passed an ordinance allowing it to assess fees on…

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying an environmental group's motion to preliminarily enjoin the construction of an oil pipeline to run from Cushing, Oklahoma, to oil…

A district court ordered EPA to conduct a necessity determination under CWA §303(c)(4)(B) in response to an environmental group's petition asking the Agency to establish water quality…

A Wisconsin court held that the state environmental agency should have considered impacts on downstream water quality when it issued a state pollutant discharge elimination system permit to an…

A district court upheld EPA's final TMDL for the Chesapeake Bay against challenges from farmer and home building groups. The TMDL—the largest ever developed by EPA—identifies the necessary…

A district court held that a coal company discharged excessive amounts of selenium into the waters of West Virginia in violation of the CWA and SMCRA. The environmental group that filed suit…

The Seventh Circuit reversed a lower court decision finding a Wisconsin mine operator liable under the CWA for discharging copper into navigable waters without a permit. The CWA's permit…

The Ninth Circuit, on remand from the U.S. Supreme Court, held that pollution exceedances detected at monitoring stations in Los Angeles County were sufficient to establish the county's…

A district court upheld DOI's approval of oil spill response plans an oil company submitted for drilling operations in the Chukchi and Beaufort Seas. Despite environmental groups'…