Legal Updates

As reported in our prior blog on County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, the Supreme Court punted on providing clear guidance to the regulated community on when a Clean Water Act Section 402 National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (“NPDES”) permit is needed.  As a result, the EPA stepped in and issued a draft guidance […]

On April 23, 2020, a divided Supreme Court ruled in County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund that the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) “requires a permit when there is a direct discharge from a point source into navigable waters or when there is the functional equivalent of a direct discharge.”  The Court reversed and […]

After nearly a decade of uncertainty, Utahns and visitors alike are looking forward to certainty on two key issues: (1) public access to and (2) navigability of the Beehive State’s premier rivers.   It all started with Conatser v. Johnson, where the Utah Supreme Court held that the scope of the public’s easement in state […]

The Colorado Supreme Court recently addressed two previously unsettled issues that will impact other water users in Grand Valley Water Users Ass’n v. Busk-Ivanhoe, Inc., 14SA303 (2016).  First, the Court held that imported transbasin water may not be stored in the basin of import prior to first use unless the decree expressly authorizes it.  The […]