Environmental Law Matters

On January 8, 2013, the U.S. Supreme Court, in a unanimous decision reversing the Ninth Circuit Court of appeals, held that "the flow of water from an improved portion of a navigable waterway into an unimproved portion of the very same waterway does not qualify as a discharge of pollutants under the CWA. Because the decision below cannot be squared with that holding, the Court of Appeals judgment must be reversed." LA County Flood Control District v. NRDC. Pursuant to its MS4 permit, the Flood Control District had been monitoring instream flows in improved sections of the Los Angeles and ...