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Last week, the Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co. (Supreme Court Case No. 15-290), which poses the question of whether a determination by the Army Corps that a property contains “waters of the United States” under the Clean Water Act is a final…

Perkins Coie attorneys — most of whom contribute regularly to this report — recently presented the 25th Annual Land Use & Development Law Breakfast Briefing in Palo Alto, San Francisco and Walnut Creek.   The presentation focused on 2014 developments and trends in land use, affordable housing, school facilities financing, CEQA, real estate and environmental and…

On March 25, 2014, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the Army Corps of Engineers jointly released a proposed rule defining waters that fall under the jurisdiction of the Clean Water Act as “waters of the United States.”  The wide sweep of the coverage afforded by the proposed rule, if finalized, would represent a significant…

On September 17, 2013, the Environmental Protection Agency announced the release of a draft scientific report that is widely seen as a prelude to upcoming regulations that would significantly expand federal permitting jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act. See our update for more information about the draft report, which is titled “Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to Downstream Waters: A Review and Synthesis of the Scientific Evidence.”
Continue Reading EPA Publishes Draft Scientific Report To Support Significant Expansion of Clean Water Act Jurisdiction

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Rapanos case in 2006, federal courts have grappled with the question of what qualifies under the Clean Water Act as “waters of the United States.”  Last week in Garland v. Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, a California court sidestepped the question. 

The Regional Board issued …

In a recent post [“When is a Wetland a Wetland — and How Do We Find Out?“] we described the significant uncertainties in ascertaining the reach of the Clean Water Act over wetlands, ponds, drainage ditches and other small aquatic features only remotely connected to navigable waterways such as rivers and lakes.  …