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Earlier this month, the EPA finalized its “Clean Water Act Section 401 Certification Rule,” which aims to increase the transparency and efficiency of the Clean Water Act (CWA) Section 401 water quality certification process to promote the timely review of infrastructure projects.
Building owners reopening vacant buildings as stay-at-home orders expire may need to flush plumbing fixtures weekly to prevent harmful organisms from growing in plumbing, according to a pre-press research study.
On May 6, 2020, the Senate’s Environment and Public Works Committee (EPW) unanimously approved—by identical votes of 21–0—two bipartisan bills that, combined, would invest nearly $20 billion in wastewater infrastructure projects and community drinking water improvements.
Tributary is a key term in the EPA/Army Corps of Engineers’ recent Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, just as it was in the 2015 WOTUS rule the newer rule replaced.
In their just-released final rule, the EPA and Army Corps of Engineers (EPA/Corps) provide a definition of the Clean Water Act (CWA) term Waters of the United States (WOTUS) that, the agencies say, is based in the commerce clause of the Constitution.
The EPA’s new proposal to reduce childhood exposure to lead in drinking water seeks to strike a balance between the need for more protection and the stubborn complexity of the risk. Under the proposal, public water systems (PWSs) would be subject to six new general requirements (which include many more specific requirements), including taking an […]
The energy-water nexus is the current phrase used to connote the interdependence of energy and water. The generation of energy requires large volumes of water, mainly for cooling equipment at thermoelectric fossil fuel and nuclear power plants; much less water is needed for renewable energy, such as wind and solar.
For the first time since it issued its Water Quality Trading Policy (Policy) in 2003, the EPA appears to be taking consequential steps to encourage broader use of a practice that seems highly attractive at first glance but that has been constrained because of how the Policy was written and how stakeholders have interpreted it.
In its proposed replacement definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS), the EPA emphasized that one of its goals was to “strike a balance between Federal and State waters and carry out Congress’ overall objective [in the Clean Water Act (CWA)] to restore and maintain the integrity of the nation’s waters in a manner […]
As we reported this summer, the EPA has embarked on a study to find alternatives to the common practice of disposing of produced water from oil and natural gas (O&G) development into underground injection wells. Since then, there have been two developments linked to the study.