By Noah Botwinick | Published June 1, 2023 | Posted in Environmental & Natural Resources | Tagged Tags: Clean Water Act, Environmental Protection Agency, SCOTUS | Comments Off on US Supreme Court Curtails Reach of the Clean Water Act
In a widely publicized decision published last week, the United States Supreme Court (“SCOTUS”) held that Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) authority to regulate wetlands of the United States pursuant to the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) extends only to wetlands that are indistinguishable from waters of the United States. In that case, Sackett v. EPA, Read More
Read MoreStormwater regulations and ordinances exist to control rainwater following development and redevelopment. The idea is that without development, the water is naturally absorbed into the ground where it recharges our aquifers. But development creates paved surfaces which block absorption. These surfaces are called “impervious” surfaces. Uncontrolled stormwater leads to localized flooding, which has become a Read More
Read MoreFor years many New Jersey lawyers understood that the mere storage of petroleum was not an abnormally dangerous activity. That is an important concept because those who engage in abnormally dangerous activities are strictly liable for harm coming from those activities, independent of fault. This is called strict liability and for decades oil companies have Read More
Read MoreRLUIPA defense counsel took note of a Florida case earlier this year that questioned whether free beach access constituted a sincerely held religious belief under the RLUIPA statute. The case, encaptioned Pass-A Grille Beach Community Church Inc. v. City of St. Pete Beach concerned a municipal challenge to a church’s evangelical practices that occurred while Read More
Read MoreLast week, New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced that the DEP will pursue the cleanup of the Lower Hackensack River as a federal Superfund site. This means that, if the designation request is accepted, the DEP will be working with the federal Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to develop a Read More
Read MoreMany of the U.S.’s environmental statutes, such as the Clean Water Act and the Clean Air Act, contain criminal enforcement measures. These criminal enforcement measures range from significant fines to jail time. On June 21, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a memorandum outlining the agency’s plans to increase enforcement of these environmental statutes Read More
Read MoreNear the end of 2020, the Trump Administration proposed Lead and Copper Rule Revisions from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). While originally slated to have already taken effect, these rule revisions met immediate opposition in the courtroom from the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), Earthjustice (on behalf of the NAACP and other organizations), as well Read More
Read MoreFamilies in New Jersey have filed multiple lawsuits in the District Court of New Jersey alleging that their birth defects and/or illnesses are the result of chemical pollution. Four suits have been filed over the last year and others appear on the horizon. The named major corporate defendants include DuPont, Chemours Arkema, and 3M. The Read More
Read MoreNew Jersey State Senate subcommittees are currently considering a bill (S-3688) that aims to dramatically slow shipping and distribution warehouse construction across the State. Recently it seems that is the only thing that anyone has wanted to build in this state but some lawmakers believe that there may be such a thing as too many Read More
Read MoreNew Jersey is the most densely populated state in the country. As development continues across the state, flooding disputes between residential neighbors are becoming increasingly common. Generally, a residential property owner is not responsible for the natural stormwater drainage pattern. This means that if your property sits at a lower elevation than your neighbor’s, your Read More
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