Law360, New York (October 14, 2015, 11:37 AM EDT) -- In ONRC Action v. U.S. Bureau of Reclamation, the Ninth Circuit held that the bureau was not required to secure a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit under the Clean Water Act in order to transfer water from Lower Klamath Lake to the Klamath River through the Klamath Straits Drain. The court reasoned that because waters flowing into the Klamath River from the drain were not meaningfully distinct, plaintiffs could not establish that the movement of those waters amounted to the addition from a point source of a pollutant to navigable waters. The well-reasoned decision of the Ninth Circuit delimits one facet of the broad prohibition on unpermitted discharges established in Section 402 of the Clean Water Act....