Making Challenges to an Impaired Waters Listing Stick

This article is reprinted with the permission of Law360, where it originally appeared on July 30, 2014, under the title “Arguing Injury Can Prevent Harm From EPA Water Listing.” The listing of a water body as impaired under the Clean … Continue reading

Still standing, still intact: Chesapeake Bay TMDL survives second legal challenge

This past September, in a case currently up on appeal before the Third Circuit, the U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania rejected a challenge to the Chesapeake Bay Total Maximum Daily Load (“Bay TMDL”) brought by several … Continue reading

Seeking clarity: EPA proposes suspension of numeric turbidity limitation for stormwater discharges from construction sites

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

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

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