April 10, 2024
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On March 27, 2024, the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the district court’s determination to vacate a drainage district annexation.
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September 28, 2023|On September 8, 2023, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (Army Corps) published a revised definition of “waters of the United States” or WOTUS. 88 FR 61964. To conform with the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Sackett v. EPA, 143 S. Ct. 1322 (2023) ruling, the agencies made various changes including the removal of the “significant nexus” standard and amending the definition of “adjacent.” The new rule went into effect September 8, 2023. Because the revision was required to make the Rule comply with the Sackett decision, no notice and opportunity for public comment was necessary.
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August 25, 2023|A commercial fishing business harvested shrimp by dragging nets along the ocean floor. The nets would trap other marine animals in addition to the shrimp. The fishermen would throw this “bycatch” back into the ocean. A conservation group brought a citizen-suit under the Clean Water Act (CWA) claiming that the company violated the CWA by 1) disturbing the sediment when it dragged nets along the ocean floor and 2) throwing the bycatch back into state waters bordering the Atlantic Ocean. The district court granted the fishing company’s motion to dismiss. On appeal to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, the court affirmed.
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May 26, 2023|On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court significantly narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States.” Sackett v. EPA, No. 21-454 (2023).
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July 30, 2022|
On July 20, 2022, the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of a petition asking for a writ of mandamus to compel the Madison County Board of Supervisors to destroy noxious weeds on a neighbor’s land. While the county Weed Commissioner can destroy the weeds and charge the expense to the landowner, that is not the exclusive remedy available for a landowner’s noxious weed violation. Instead, a county weed commissioner can work with a landowner over extended periods of time to address noxious weed violations. The Court further reasoned that a writ of mandamus is an inappropriate legal remedy in this circumstance since the landowner could file a nuisance lawsuit against the neighbor.
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August 24, 2021|On August 16, 2021, the Ninth Circuit brought closure to long-standing wetlands litigation between Idaho property owners and the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Despite the EPA’s intent to no longer pursue enforcement action, the court held that the case was not moot and that the property consisted of wetlands under the “significant nexus” test.
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August 18, 2021We have been seeing renewed interest and activity associated with a market for carbon credits, in particular credits created through new land management and conservation practices farmers implement on their land.
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July 26, 2021|On July 26, 2021, the District Court of Hawaii considered whether the County of Maui must obtain a National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for releasing pollutants into injection wells a half a mile from the ocean. On remand, this district court, using factors set forth by the Supreme Court, held that the circumstances surrounding how the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility (LWRF) conveyed pollutants through groundwater was the “functional equivalent of a discharge.”
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June 23, 2021|On June 18, the Iowa Supreme Court—in a 4-3 decision—dismissed a water quality lawsuit filed against the State of Iowa[i] by two social justice groups, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Food and Water Watch.
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March 2, 2021|
On March 2, 2021, the United States Court of Appeals for the Tenth Circuit determined that the district court abused its discretion when it granted the State of Colorado’s request to stay the effective date of the Navigable Waters Protection Rule
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May 1, 2020|The question before the U.S. Supreme Court was whether the Clean Water Act requires a permit when pollutants originate from a point source but are conveyed to navigable waters by a nonpoint source, in this case, groundwater. Many had hoped the Court’s answer to this question would clarify longtime ambiguity under the CWA. But given the complexity of the issue, that was not to be.
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February 6, 2020|On January 23, 2020, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S.
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January 1, 2020|As we move into 2020, we're dedicating this post to reviewing important agricultural law developments from the past year. Most of these issues continue to evolve, and we look forward to providing updates as they occur. Happy new year!
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September 13, 2019|On Thursday, September 12, 2019, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the Army released a final rule to repeal the embattled 2015 Clean Water Rule, also known as WOTUS.
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September 11, 2019|The Seventh Circuit recently ruled that the USDA acted arbitrarily and capriciously when it treated several acres of an Indiana couple’s farm as a converted wetland and rendered their entire farm ineligible for USDA benefits. Boucher v.
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August 23, 2019|On August 21, 2019, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Georgia became the second federal court in the past three months to rule that the 2015 Waters of the United States Rule (the WOTUS Rule), was improperly issued by th
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August 12, 2019|
On August 7, 2019, the Iowa Court of Appeals ruled that an alleged farm nuisance was a continuous, rather than permanent, nuisance.
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May 29, 2019|On May 28, 2019, the United States District Court for the Southern District of Texas determined that the EPA and U.S.
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March 30, 2019|On March 27, 2019, two environmental groups—Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement and Food and Water Watch—filed a petition in state court seeking injunctive and declaratory relief against the State of Iowa, the Department of Natural R