Yesterday, I spoke with Sarah Mattalian, an Inside EPA reporter writing a story about the suggestion by an EPA official that EPA might require additional PFAS investigations and clean up at properties that had already been...more
11/15/2023
/ Brownfield Properties ,
CERCLA ,
Chemicals ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) ,
Investigations ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Remediation ,
Site Remediation ,
Soil
Since EPA published its PFAS road map just a little more than two years ago, I've often commended EPA for its ambitious plan to regulate the forever and everywhere chemicals known collectively as PFAS. After all, if, as EPA...more
Yesterday, I spoke with Sarah Mattalian, an Inside EPA reporter writing a story about the suggestion by an EPA official that EPA might require additional PFAS investigations and clean up at properties that had already been...more
Sam Hess of Inside EPA is reporting that Democrats in the House of Representatives and the Senate might be ready to work on legislation ending the longest running controversy in environmental law – the decades long battle...more
Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis famously exclaimed sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants. Of course the Atlanta Journal-Constitution and the Rome News-Tribune endorse that proposition. And, the newspapers...more
10/10/2023
/ Discharge of Pollutants ,
Drinking Water ,
Environmental Litigation ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Georgia ,
Legislative Agendas ,
Multidistrict Litigation ,
New Legislation ,
PFAS ,
Settlement ,
State Legislatures ,
Water
EPA is publishing its final rule specifying the role of States and Tribes in the Federal licensing or permitting of activities that may result in a "discharge" into a "Water of the United States". Like EPA's recent tenth...more
Sam Hess of Inside EPA reports that EPA and the Corps of Engineers are going to apply their tenth, post-Sackett, attempt to define Waters of the United States only in the states and territories that aren't subject to...more
The ever-vigilant Sam Hess of Inside EPA has posted an August presentation by an EPA official at the Association of Clean Water Administrators’ Annual Meeting. That presentation says that EPA has drafted new guidance based...more
Sam Hess's report in Inside EPA paints a nuanced picture of the apparently never ending controversy over the reach of the Clean Water Act. I can't help but offer a few reactions....more
Ahead of schedule, yesterday EPA and the US Army Corps of Engineers published their tenth attempt to specify the reach of the Federal Clean Water Act. The only question now is will its opponents file amended complaints in...more
8/30/2023
/ Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Hawaii Wildlife Fund v County of Maui ,
Jurisdiction ,
Navigable Waters ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Surface Water ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
One of the two things in EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiative for PFAS that caught my eye also caught the eye of Suzanne Yohannan at Inside PFAS Policy.
That thing was that EPA Assistant Administrator...more
Anyone who has been practicing environmental law for more than a few years has had a case requiring a dive into the black hole that is CERCLA's statute of limitations which specifies the time within which someone seeking to...more
This week Judge Gergel tentatively approved the $1.2 billion settlement between DuPont (and related companies) and water suppliers now dealing with the fact that EPA and many States have concluded that the most minute...more
8/24/2023
/ Administrative Procedure Act ,
Appeals ,
Clean-Up Costs ,
Drinking Water ,
DuPont ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Groundwater ,
PFAS ,
Public Health ,
Settlement ,
Water Supplies
After less than a month on the job EPA Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) Chief David Uhlmann this week released a memorandum outlining EPA's National Enforcement and Compliance Initiatives (NECIs) for the...more
This week, in North Carolina Coastal Fisheries Reform Group, et al., v. Capt. Gaston LLC, a three judge panel of the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals agreed with a District Court Judge that when shrimpers use nets to catch...more
Last week the Waters Advocacy Coalition sent to the heads of the Environmental Protection Administration and the Corps of Engineers many "recommendations" regarding EPA's and the Corps' post-Sackett attempt to determine the...more
I'm surprised to see the Biden Administration EPA moving forward right now with a rule proposed during the Trump Administration to allow states to take over responsibility for the permitting of "dredge and fill" activities...more
7/20/2023
/ Biden Administration ,
Center for Biological Diversity ,
Clean Water Act ,
Discharge of Pollutants ,
Dredge and Fill ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
Proposed Rules ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
Section 404 ,
Trump Administration ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
This week Massachusetts Federal District Court Judge Richard Stearns dismissed two counts of the Conservation Law Foundation's and Charles River Watershed Association's lawsuit against EPA and stayed until September of next...more
Inside EPA reports that EPA Assistant Administrator Radhika Fox has told Congress that we can expect a new Waters of the United States regulation in September. Assistant Administrator Fox promises that the new regulation...more
Just before the July 4th holiday, I was wondering out loud what was to be gained by having a Federal District Court decide the merits of a challenge to EPA's eighth attempt to determine the reach of the Clean Water Act. ...more
7/12/2023
/ Clean Water Act ,
Environmental Policies ,
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) ,
NGOs ,
Rapanos v US ,
Sackett ,
Sackett v EPA ,
SCOTUS ,
US Army Corps of Engineers ,
Waters of the United States ,
Wetlands
According to a complaint filed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, the DeKalb County Wastewater Treatment Facility discharged untreated wastewater into the...more
Everyone from Bloomberg to CNN to the Boston Globe is reporting today on US Geologic Survey research concluding that "nearly half" (45 percent to be precise) of US drinking water sources contain detectable concentrations of...more
Just before the July 4th holiday I was wondering what opponents to EPA's and the Army Corps of Engineers' now moribund Waters of the United States regulation hoped to gain by having a Federal District Court Judge in the Lone...more
Sam Hess of Inside EPA reports that Idaho, Texas and several NGOs are pressing a District Court Judge in the Lone Star State to decide their challenge to the Biden Administration's Waters of the United States rule on the...more
James Russell Lowell wrote that one thorn of experience is worth a whole wilderness of warning. This week's nearly 400 million dollar settlement between a New Jersey plastic manufacturer and the State of New Jersey over the...more