Water Law Commons^™

The Antiregulatory Arsenal, Antidemocratic Can(N)Ons, And The Waters Wars, William W. Buzbee

Georgetown Law Faculty Publications and Other Works

The Clean Water Act has become a centerpiece in an enduring multifront battle against both environmental regulation and federal regulatory power in all of its settings. This Article focuses on the emergence, elements, and linked uses of an antiregulatory arsenal now central to battles over what are federally protected “waters of the United States.” This is the key jurisdictional hook for CWA jurisdiction, and hence, logically, has become the heart of CWA contestation. The multi-decade battle over Waters protections has both drawn on emergent antiregulatory moves and generated new weapons in this increasingly prevalent and powerful antiregulatory arsenal. This array …

A Unified Theory Of Clean Water Act Jurisdiction, Robert W. Adler

Utah Law Faculty Scholarship

As it reaches its half century mark, the modern version of the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) remains a definitional quagmire. The U.S. Supreme Court, lower courts, and the two federal agencies charged with implementing the law have struggled to interpret its scope ever since its 1972 enactment. As a result, we still lack clarity regarding the most basic questions about the law’s reach. That causes massive uncertainty for regulated businesses and landowners, the federal and state agencies that implement the law, and members of the public Congress intended to protect. A unified interpretive approach focuses on the statutory text …

Salmon And The Clean Water Act: An Unfinished Agenda, Michael Blumm, Michael Benjamin Smith

Faculty Articles

Salmon are perhaps the quintessential indicator species for water quality, as they require both sufficient quality and quantity to migrate and spawn. Columbia Basin salmon have been listed under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) for over a quarter-century in large part due to inadequate water flows and poor water quality. A half-century ago, long before the listings, the modern Clean Water Act promised fishable waters. This article explains that this is a promise largely unkept due to implementing agencies’ evasion and disinterest. Recent litigation, however, offers some hope that the statute may yet provide a viable path towards protecting and …

California Should Lead The Nation In Controlling Agricultural Pollution, Helen H. Kang, Deborah Sivas

Publications

Agricultural runoff is one of the largest sources of pollution in the nation’s waterways. In recent years, scientific journals and the media have been filled with reports of toxic algae blooms and dead zones near and far: The Everglades, Great Lakes, Gulf of Mexico, Chesapeake Bay, and San Francisco Bay-Delta. Agricultural pollution also threatens public health in communities that rely on tainted groundwater. In California alone, more than a quarter million residents in largely agricultural areas are served by water systems with degraded groundwater quality.

Using Citizen Suits To Remedy Environmental Injustice And Achieve Clean Water In California, Paul Kneitz

Poverty Law Conference & Symposium

Nearly fifty years since the passage of the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) in 1972, widespread pollution of California’s surface and groundwater continues across the state. “Over half of California’s lakes, bays, wetlands, and estuaries are too polluted to swim, drink, or fish,” according to the State Water Resources Control Board. Poor and working-class communities suffer disproportionately from the negative externalities and environmental impacts of water pollution, including effects on human health and wellness.

With a focus on the CWA citizen suit provision, this paper examines how the legal and administrative processes for water pollution control have not effectively addressed the …

Transboundary Waters, Annie Brett

UF Law Faculty Publications

In 2018, toxic algae spread from Lake Okeechobee through the State of Florida, leading to a state of emergency and costing the state over $17 million. Similar toxic algal blooms have become an annual occurrence throughout the country and highlighted the pervasive issues with the US. water supply. Inadequate and incomplete monitoring data means that state and federal managers, as well as the public, know shockingly little about water quality in most of the waters in the United States despite the fact that the Clean Water Act requires extensive water quality monitoring and assessment. Academics have widely discussed failings of …

Bounding Forward, Robert L. Fischman

Articles by Maurer Faculty

In the race to save the planet from climate change, resilience has been misconstrued as sustaining historic conditions. But some of them are undesirable and others no longer feasible. Adaptive governance can promote transformation to help communities frustrated with current conditions.

Plain Meaning, Precedent, And Metaphysics: Lessons In Statutory Interpretation From Analyzing The Elements Of The Clean Water Act Offense, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article, the fifth in a series of five, completes the author’s detailed analysis of how federal courts have interpreted each element of the Clean Water Act (CWA) offense. Compiling statistics across the four prior articles, it draws conclusions about statutory interpretation in general, finding that the depth of legal analysis increases with the level of court; that environmentally positive results decrease with the level of court; that courts use only a small number of canons and other interpretive devices; that their uses of interpretive devices change over time; and that interpretive devices are not all outcome-neutral. The author also …

Drinking Water Protection And Agricultural Exceptionalism, Margot J. Pollans

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

Providing safe drinking water is a basic responsibility of government. In the United States, local water utilities shoulder much of this burden, but federal drinking water law sets these utilities up to fail. The primary problem arises in the context of nonpoint source pollution, where federal drinking water law favors end-of-line clean up by water utilities over pollution prevention by farmers and other nonpoint source polluters. This system is both inefficient and unfair.

Although the Safe Drinking Water Act requires local utilities to provide safe water, it gives them few tools to engage in water pollution prevention and instead emphasizes …

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Survey, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2014, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, addressing an issue of first impression, rejected the district court's use of a Lone Pine case-management order as a means of testing the sufficiency of the plaintiffs' pleadings in a state law environmental torts case. The court also interpreted Florida law to mean that plaintiffs are not required to allege that groundwater contamination exceeded regulatory maximum contaminant levels for drinking water to maintain their claims and that they could recover "stigma" damages to their property without alleging actual contamination. The United States District Court for the Middle District …

Plain Meaning, Precedent, And Metaphysics: Interpreting The “Navigable Waters” Element Of The Federal Water Pollution Offense, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article, the third in a series of five, examines the meaning of “navigable waters” under the Clean Water Act. It traces the traditional judicial interpretation of navigable waters and how Congress and EPA attempted to extend its meaning, then examines how the term has been applied in the context of tributaries and wetlands, isolated waters, groundwater, and EPA’s unitary theory of navigable waters. The author then analyzes EPA and the Corps’ 2014 proposed amendments to the definition of “waters of the United States,” and concludes that those amendments may resolve much of the interpretive crisis.

Plain Meaning, Precedent, And Metaphysics: Interpreting The “Point Source” Element Of The Clean Water Act Offense, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article, the fourth in a series of five, examines the continuing struggles to define “point source” and “nonpoint source” under the Clean Water Act. State regulation of nonpoint sources is neither pervasive nor robust, and most continuing water pollution problems can be traced primarily to nonpoint sources. EPA should define nonpoint sources by regulation and begin to expand the definition of point source by incorporating established case law and Agency practice to bring more nonpoint sources into the point source definition.

Slides: Session 2, Water Supply And Quality: The Regulatory Framework, Richard E. Schwartz

Water and Air Quality Issues in Oil and Gas Development: The Evolving Framework of Regulation and Management (Martz Summer Conference, June 5-6)

Presenter: Richard E. Schwartz, Crowell & Moring LLP

38 slides

Maintaining A Healthy Water Supply While Growing A Healthy Food Supply: Legal Tools For Cleaning Up Agricultural Water Pollution, Mary Jane Angelo, Jon Morris

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article will explore a number of legal mechanisms that could play a role in ensuring that discharges from agricultural activities do not cause or contribute to violations of water quality standards. Specifically, this article will evaluate the relative effectiveness of: (1) narrative nutrient criteria as compared with numeric nutrient criteria; (2) Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) implementation through regulatory and non-regulatory mechanisms; and (3) the relative efficacy of design-based standards such as Best Management Practices (BMPs) and performance-based standards in reducing water pollution from agriculture. The article will draw on experiences from the State of Florida, including Everglades' restoration …

Plain Meaning, Precedent, And Metaphysics: Interpreting The “Addition” Element Of The Clean Water Act Offense, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

The Clean Water Act (CWA) prohibits addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source by any person without a permit. Surprisingly, the first element of this prohibition, “addition,” remains undefined. It has been interpreted broadly by regulators and judges to expand the prohibition to such an extent that it threatens to capture innocent people. EPA in particular has confused “addition” with “navigable waters” to such an extent that it threatens to eviscerate half of the CWA’s regulatory strategies and programs: water quality standards and the § 404 program protecting wetlands. This Article examines the interpretation of “addition” …

Plain Meaning, Precedent, And Metaphysics: Interpreting The “Pollutant” Element Of The Federal Water Pollution Offense, Jeffrey G. Miller

Elisabeth Haub School of Law Faculty Publications

This Article, the second in a series of five, examines the meaning of “pollutant” under the Clean Water Act. Congress and EPA have defined “pollutant” to mean a list of specific substances and broad categories of materials and wastes discharged into water, e.g., “biological materials” and “chemical wastes.” The definition is broad enough to encompass virtually all substances associated with human activity that are discharged to water, regardless of whether the substances cause pollution or are produced through human endeavor. Therefore, “pollutant” is rarely a limiting element. Instead, the issues with the definition of “pollutant” primarily address whether it includes …

Environmental Law, Eleventh Circuit Survey, Travis M. Trimble

Scholarly Works

In 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit, deciding an issue of first impression, held that a party that enters a consent order to settle potential liability under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) is not entitled to pursue a cost recovery action against other potentially responsible parties under section 1073 of the Act, but may only seek contribution from those parties under section 113(f) of the Act. The court also affirmed a decision by the Bureau of Ocean Energy Manage- ment to approve an exploration plan for oil and gas drilling in …

Compartmentalized Thinking And The Clean Water Act, Christine A. Klein

UF Law Faculty Publications

Modern water pollution control traces back to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act of 1972 (Clean Water Act or CWA). Like other statutes of its period, the CWA addresses pollution of a single medium, water. Despite its goal of achieving aquatic integrity, the CWA succumbs to what this article refers to as “compartmentalized thinking.” That is, in drafting the CWA, Congress created a series of regulatory boxes that separate water into constituent parts recognized by law, but not by nature. Undertaking a deeper examination of the fragmentation instinct, this article turns to political theory and cognitive psychology for explanations. In …

Slides: Colorado Law: Protecting Water Quantity And Quality, Alan E. Curtis

Monitoring and Protecting Groundwater During Oil and Gas Development (November 26)

Presenter: Alan E. Curtis, White & Jankowski, LLP

23 slides

Slides: Colorado’S Groundwater Protection Program, Andrew Ross

Monitoring and Protecting Groundwater During Oil and Gas Development (November 26)

Presenter: Andrew Ross, Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment

22 slides

The Judicial Assault On The Clean Water Act, Mark Squillace

Publications

No abstract provided.

Slides: Development Of Shale: Water Resource Concerns And Policy Considerations, Katy Dunlap

Shale Plays in the Intermountain West: Legal and Policy Issues (November 12)

Presenter: Katy Dunlap, Eastern Water Project Director, Trout Unlimited, Inc., Burdett, NY

24 slides

Slides: Evolving Policy On Shale Plays, John Martin

Shale Plays in the Intermountain West: Legal and Policy Issues (November 12)

Presenter: John Martin, Crowell & Moring, LLP, Washington, DC

17 slides

Slides: Innovative Best Practices For The Western Slope: Stormwater Management Solutions And Philosophy For The Oil And Gas Industry, Kyle N. Schildt

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

Presenter: Kyle N. Schildt, P.E., LT Environmental, Inc.

12 slides

Agenda: Western Water Law, Policy And Management: Ripples, Currents, And New Channels For Inquiry, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center, Western Water Policy Program

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

In many pockets of the American West, stresses and demands on water resources are overwhelming our capacity to effectively manage change and accommodate the diversity of interests and values associated with our limited water resources.

This event will offer an opportunity for lawyers, policymakers, and water professionals to engage the experts on the challenges and emerging solutions to the most pressing water policy and management issues of the day.

Slides: Finding Flows: Fish Still Need Water Everyday, Melinda Kassen

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Melinda Kassen, Director of the Western Water Project, Trout Unlimited

12 slides

Slides: Rapanos And The Courts: Navigating Through The Fog, Jim Murphy

Western Water Law, Policy and Management: Ripples, Currents, and New Channels for Inquiry (Martz Summer Conference, June 3-5)

Presenter: Jim Murphy, Wetlands and Water Resources Counsel, National Wildlife Federation, VT

25 slides

Slides: Protecting Biodiversity Through Ecosystem Services, Barton "Buzz" Thompson

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Barton “Buzz” Thompson, Perry L. McCarty Director, Woods Institute for the Environment, Stanford University Law School

14 slides

Slides: Energy Production And The West's Wild Places, Amy Mall

Shifting Baselines and New Meridians: Water, Resources, Landscapes, and the Transformation of the American West (Summer Conference, June 4-6)

Presenter: Amy Mall, Senior Policy Analyst, Natural Resources Defense Council

28 slides

Some Preliminary Thoughts On Contrasts And Convergence In Environmental And Natural Resources Law, Karin P. Sheldon

The Future of Natural Resources Law and Policy (Summer Conference, June 6-8)

16 pages.

Includes bibliographical references