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The Clean Water Act’S Final Frontier: Taking On Nonpoint Source Pollution Using Mandatory Tmdl Rules, Jason M. Stoffel

Jason M Stoffel

While the Clean Water Act, as it is currently structured, has few provisions that directly regulate nonpoint source pollution, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, in the case Friends of Pinto Creek v. United States EPA, 504 F.3d 1007 (9th Cir. 2007), has recognized the Total Maximum Daily Load ("TMDL") program as a tool that can be used by the EPA to indirectly compel states to regulate nonpoint source pollution in the nation’s impaired waters. In the context of the Ninth Circuit’s ruling, in 2010, the EPA made national headlines by pushing states to regulate nonpoint source pollution in the …