The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of West Virginia has ruled on the government’s motions to dismiss the plaintiffs’ constitutional arguments in a new Clean Water Act (CWA) administrative compliance order matter. The plaintiffs, West Virginia property developers, were alleged to have violated the CWA by illegally discharging…
On September 30, 2015, the U.S. District Court for Wyoming granted requests for a preliminary nationwide injunction against the implementation of the Department of the Interior’s (DOI) Bureau Of Land Management (BLM) rules that apply to hydraulic fracturing on Federal and Indian lands. The lead case is State of Wyoming v.…
On September 29, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit issued a unanimous ruling affirming the district court’s rejection of a lawsuit filed by the Sierra Club against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in which the Sierra Club argued that the federal government was obliged to conduct a…
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers often exercises its Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 404 permitting authority through administrative “jurisdictional determinations”, in which the agency usually determines whether a proposed project involves the deposit or disposal of dredge and fill material into wetlands deemed to be “waters of the United…
On September 21, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit issued an important Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA), cost recovery lawsuit ruling relating to a contractual release of liability that pre-dated CERCLA. The case is The Peoples Gas Light and Coke Company v. Beazer East, Inc.…
On September 11, 2015, the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Louisiana issued a significant ruling holding that CERCLA’s “Petroleum Exclusion” applies to the release of crude oil and any quantities of benzene, toluene and xylene present in this crude oil resulting from the Deepwater Horizon oil spill…
On September 4, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit issued an important ruling concerning the scope of the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918, 16 U.S.C. § 703 (MBTA), and the federal government’s use of an EPA rule regulating the operation of petroleum refinery wastewater treatment systems in…
On September 1, 2015, the U.S. District Court for the Western District of Texas issued a ruling which vacates the April 2014 listing of the Lesser Prairie Chicken (LPC) as a threatened species pursuant to the Endangered Species Act. The case is Permian Basin Petroleum Association, et al. v. Department of…
On August 30, 2015, U.S. District Court Judge Lynn Hughes of the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas issued an opinion dismissing the Government’s lawsuit asserting that Thomas Lipar, a real estate developer, violated the Clean Water Act by discharging fill material into jurisdictional wetlands without a permit. According…
On August 27, 2015, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit issued a Clean Water Act (CWA) ruling affirming the decision of the lower court that STABL, Inc. the former owner and operator of a rendering plant in Lexington, Nebraska, violated the CWA and the Nebraska Environmental Protection Act. …