Water

Regulatory and legislative disputes over the clean water and safe drinking water acts have major implications for dischargers, utilities and others, and our Water section features the latest news from EPA, the courts and Congress.

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Regulatory and legislative disputes over the clean water and safe drinking water acts have major implications for dischargers, utilities and others, and our Water section features the latest news from EPA, the courts and Congress.

EPA Meeting With Water Regulators Avoids Regulatory Reform Discussion

EPA's Office of Water (OW) held an April 26 meeting with water regulators as part of the agency's series of ongoing regulatory review discussions but sources say the session was one in a series of regular meetings with EPA staffers about ongoing activities and avoided any major talk about potential reform or repeal of rules. A source who attended the meeting described it as the latest of the water office's quarterly sessions with groups including the Association of Clean Water...

Environmentalists threaten to sue EPA over New York water standards

Environmentalists are threatening to sue EPA for allegedly failing to require New York to update its water quality standards to protect some New York City waters used for recreational purposes from bacteria and other pollutants. In an April 27 notice of intent (NOI), the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Waterkeeper Alliance, Riverkeeper and a host of New York and New Jersey clean water groups said they will ask a federal court to order EPA to adopt new water quality standards...

EPA Touts 'Discretionary Function' Defense In Gold King Mine Spill Suit

EPA is arguing that the decisions its staff made leading up to the 2015 Gold King Mine (GKM) wastewater spill were “discretionary” judgment calls that are protected against a pending lawsuit seeking damages for the accident, fighting the Navajo Nation's bid to add tort claims against the agency to the broad court case over the spill. “While scientific and technical knowledge undoubtedly played an important role, the decision of how to unblock the GKM adit cannot be reduced to a...


Contractor resists tribe's claims in Gold King mine spill suit

A contractor that worked with EPA on the 2015 Gold King Mine cleanup project is urging the court hearing consolidated suits over the spill of 3 million gallons of contaminated wastewater from the project to reject the Navajo Nation's updated claims against it, saying a contractor cannot be held responsible for the government-led spill. Environmental Restoration (ER) filed an April 21 brief with the U.S. District Court for the District of New Mexico, says the court should reject the Navajo...

EPW Hearing Shows Procedural Pitfalls For Trump's CWA Jurisdiction Rule

Democratic senators and the Obama EPA's former top water official at an April 26 environment panel hearing said the Trump administration faces significant procedural pitfalls in crafting a rule to replace the Obama-era Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule, including legal hurdles and a need to conduct extensive new research for it. Speaking at the Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) hearing on scientific and legal basis for the Obama-era CWA regulation, Democrats and their witnesses said there is...

Retired Army Corps Maj. Gen. John Peabody's Testimony

SAB Panel Member Michael Josselyn's Testimony


National Association Of Clean Water Agencies Comments

Water Environment Federation Comments

AK Steel Comments

National Stone, Sand And Gravel Association Comments


States, Industry Raise Implementation Concerns Over Cyanotoxins Criteria

State regulators and publicly owned treatment works (POTWs) are raising implementation concerns about EPA's draft recreational water quality criteria for the cyanotoxins microcystins and cylindrospermopsin, including how states will use the criteria in discharge permits and monitoring for compliance, while questioning the science behind the criteria. In comments filed recently with EPA , some states say they support the concept of the Clean Water Act (CWA) criteria, at least for use in swimming and similar advisories, but that they need...

IG says EPA support of tribe's CWA campaign was lawful

EPA's Inspector General (IG) says EPA did not violate a lobbying ban when it approved grants for a Washington tribe's campaign against unregulated water pollution from farms, rejecting GOP lawmakers' claims that the effort was similar to an alleged “covert” promotion of the Obama administration's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule. “[T]here is no evidence that the EPA engaged in covert propaganda or self-aggrandizement at the federal or state government levels. Therefore, no violation of Section 720 occurred,” says the...



EPW sets hearing on CWA jurisdiction rule

The Senate Environment & Public Works Committee (EPW) has set an April 26 hearing on the scientific, technical and legal grounding for the Obama administration's Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction rule -- the first Congressional hearing on the policy since President Donald Trump ordered EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers to rework it. According to the hearing notice the full committee will hear testimony from three important figures in the rule's development: Ken Kopocis, who headed EPA's water office...

Industry seeks to preserve EPA's WaterSense labeling program

Several water industry groups are working to garner support to preserve funds for WaterSense, EPA's voluntary water efficiency labeling program, fearing the product-labeling program will be eliminated, as proposed in the Trump administration's budget request for fiscal year 2018. In recent letters to EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt, Plumbing Manufacturers International (PMI), which represents plumbing products manufacturers, the Alliance for Water Efficiency (AWE) and others have requested meetings to tout the program's benefits and push to preserve it. PMI's April 17...

4th Circuit To Weigh Power Plants' CWA Liability For Ash Groundwater Leaks

A Virginia power company has appealed a district court's ruling that opened it to Clean Water Act (CWA) liability for pollution leaks from coal ash into groundwater that leads to protected surface waters, teeing up an appellate decision that could expose a host of power plants to citizen suits or other enforcement actions over similar leaks. Dominion Virginia Power filed a notice of appeal April 21 in Sierra Club, et al., v. Dominion Virginia Power , signaling that it will...

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