20Dec 2022 by Nicole Rinaldi

EPA Announces FY 2022 Enforcement and Compliance Accomplishments

National News
EPA Press Office WASHINGTON – Today, the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance (OECA) announced the FY 2022 Annual Environmental Enforcement Results report, highlighting increased inspections in the aftermath of the pandemic, reductions in significant noncompliance under the Clean Water Act, and aggressive actions to target the most serious water, air, land, and chemical violations that impact communities across the countryTaken together, OECA’s criminal, civil, and administrative enforcement cases reduced, treated or eliminated pollutants by 95 million pounds and required violators to pay over $300 million in penalties, fines and restitution. In keeping with EPA’s Strategic Plan, OECA focused on working to mitigate the effects of climate change and advance environmental justice in the enforcement program.“In FY 2022, EPA’s enforcement and compliance program used a…
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26Oct 2022 by Nicole Rinaldi

Feds Sue Driggs, Idaho for Excess Pollutants in Wastewater

Idaho News, National News
Bloomberg Law The City of Driggs, Idaho illegally discharged pollutants from its sewer system, the US says in a lawsuit alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. Driggs’ wastewater treatment plant and sewage collection system failed to comply with the city’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, which allowed it to release wastewater from an outfall if it followed certain discharge limits, according to the lawsuit. The complaint, filed Monday in the US District Court for the District of Idaho, says the city didn’t comply with the permit’s limits for E. coli, ammonia, and other biochemicals on various days within the past five years. Some sampling records lacked signatures, dates, and times, the lawsuit said. The EPA entered into a consent agreement with the city in 2018 to resolve the…
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03Jun 2022 by Nicole Rinaldi

EPA moves to give states, tribes more power to protect water rights

National News
By Michael Phillis & Suman Naishadham; Associated Press ST. LOUIS (AP) — The Biden administration on Thursday proposed undoing a Trump-era rule that limited the power of states and Native American tribes to block energy projects like natural gas pipelines based on their potential to pollute rivers and streams. The Clean Water Act allows states and tribes to review what effect pipelines, dams and some other federally regulated projects might have on water quality within their borders. The Trump administration sought to streamline fossil fuel development and made it harder for local officials to block projects. The Biden administration’s proposed rule would shift power back to states, tribes and territories. Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Michael Regan said in a statement that the agency’s draft regulation would empower local entities to…
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07Apr 2022 by Nicole Rinaldi

Five decades after Clean Water Act, half of US waters too polluted to swim or fish

National News
By Amanda Brandeis; Scripps National Correspondent SAN DIEGO, Calif. — Voted into law a half-century ago, the Clean Water Act of 1972 is still far from achieving its ambitious goals. The landmark law aimed to make U.S. waters safe for swimming and fishing by 1983. It also promised to eliminate all discharges of pollutants into navigable waters by 1985. "There were really outrageous incidents of pollution that really brought the issue of water pollution to the public’s attention," said Tom Pelton, director of communications for the Environmental Integrity Project (EIP). In 1969, the Cuyahoga River in Cleveland was so polluted that it caught fire. Nearly always covered in oil slicks, industrial runoff polluted the water for decades. "And it happened before in the '50s and the '40s. So much oil…
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27Jan 2022 by Nicole Rinaldi

Supreme Court tees up wetlands fight that could cuff EPA

National News
E&E News Idaho landowners Chantell and Michael Sackett are behind a new Supreme Court case that could upend Clean Water Act precedent. Pacific Legal Foundation The Supreme Court’s decision today to take a fresh look at the scope of the Clean Water Act could impair EPA’s ability to protect isolated wetlands and ephemeral and intermittent streams. It’s the latest brawl the high court has agreed to tackle with the potential to reshape national environmental policy. “They very well could address this whole issue fresh, what we call de novo, look at it in light of what the language of the statute really means,” said Larry Liebesman, a senior adviser at Dawson & Associates, a consulting firm that specializes in permitting. “With a 6-3 majority conservative, there’s a fair chance they may…
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