Late last week, EPA proposed suspending its efforts to impose a numeric limitation on the allowable level of turbidity in stormwater discharges from certain construction sites as part of a settlement with several industry groups who had challenged a 2009 … Continue reading
Author Archives: admin
When a letter isn’t just a letter: Eighth Circuit vacates EPA rules on mixing zones and blending
Early last week, in Iowa League of Cities v. EPA, No. 11-3412 (8th Cir.), the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit determined that two letters from EPA to Senator Charles Grassley regarding water treatment processes at municipal sewage treatment plants, … Continue reading
U.S. Supreme Court defers to EPA in ruling stormwater discharges from logging roads exempt from Clean Water Act permitting requirements
Last week, in Decker v. Northwest Environmental Defense Center, No. 11-338 (U.S., Mar. 20, 2013), the United States Supreme Court held that discharges of channeled stormwater runoff from logging roads are exempt from NPDES permitting requirements under Clean Water Act … Continue reading
Go directly to Circuit Court. Do not pass the EHB. (But do collect permits from DEP.)
Earlier this month, the United States District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania held that Section 717b(d) of the Natural Gas Act (NGA), 15 U.S.C. § 717b(d), authorizes states to continue issuing permits under the federal Clean Water Act … Continue reading
District Court nixes the use of nonpollutants as surrogates for pollutants in the development of TMDLs
Earlier this year, a federal district court in Virginia issued an opinion that could present challenges for environmental regulators seeking to address impairment of water resources caused by sediment from stream bank and streambed erosion. In Va. Dep’t of Transp., … Continue reading
The bombshell Supreme Court opinion that wasn’t
A case that could have had explosive implications both on the question of jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act and on the Act’s regulation of stormwater discharges from urbanized areas instead barely registered a fizzle when the United States Supreme … Continue reading