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May 05, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on May 4 denied a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a man seeking clarification on how to challenge U.S. Environmental Protection Agency decisions and delays in court and to fix an alleged error regarding the correct lower court in which he was supposed to file a challenge to the EPA’s denial of new market entrant status in a program designed to scale back potent greenhouse gases.
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May 04, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Pursuant to the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permitting program, the United States filed a federal suit against the District of Columbia public utility that owns and operates a sanitary sewer pipeline that allegedly collapsed and discharged millions of gallons of raw, untreated sewage into the Potomac River over the course of nearly two months.
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May 04, 2026
SANTA ANA, Calif. — An environmental nonprofit dedicated to protecting and promoting “swimmable, drinkable, fishable water” throughout Orange County, on May 1 filed a complaint in a California federal court against the owners and operators of a concrete block production facility alleging violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) for discharging polluted stormwater into surrounding drains and waters in excess of legal limits under the facility’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) general permit.
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May 04, 2026
PENDLETON, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon, in denying a motion to consolidate two similar, pending lawsuits involving the alleged contamination of groundwater in the Lower Umatilla Basin by Amazon Data Services (ADS), the Port of Morrow and several agricultural companies in violation of state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), held that “the judicial economy does not require consolidation” of the cases and opined that joining them could prejudice the defendants.
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May 04, 2026
CINCINNATI — In a proposed consent decree resolving a federal lawsuit brought by the United States alleging improper handling of refrigerants pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA), a national grocery store chain is slated to pay a $2.5 million civil penalty and implement a series of corrective actions, including creation of a companywide compliance program, meeting strict leak-performance standards, upgrading its refrigeration systems and performing ongoing monitoring and reporting.
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May 04, 2026
LOS ANGELES — The owner and operator of an industrial solid waste management facility accused of discharging polluted stormwater into the Los Angeles River agreed to pay $116,000 in compliance oversight and mitigation costs and attorney fees and implement a series of comprehensive pollution controls to settle a federal suit filed by an environmental nonprofit alleging violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit conditions.
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May 01, 2026
BALTIMORE — Admonishing “the rapid transformation of a” Maryland warehouse built to process cargo “into a detention facility designed to house human beings,” a federal judge held that the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and its subsidiary U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement “failed to clear the low bar of basic” compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and granted a preliminary injunction to the state barring renovation or construction of the facility as an immigration detention center during the pendency of a lawsuit seeking to halt construction.
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April 30, 2026
ATLANTA — A split 11th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel vacated and remanded a Florida federal judge’s order preliminarily enjoining federal officials from constructing an immigration detention center known as “Alligator Alcatraz” on state airport property, holding that two environmental nonprofits and an intervening federal sovereign nation failed to prove that constructing the facility without performing an environmental analysis was a final agency action under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA) or a “major federal action” under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
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April 27, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court should deny a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a Connecticut farmland owner seeking review of an order that held him liable for remediation of his property after he violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) by filling in wetlands without a permit because the case is procedurally flawed and a premature vehicle for deciding any broad questions regarding the CWA, the United States says in an April 24 response.
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April 20, 2026
CHARLESTON, S.C. — The federal judge in South Carolina presiding over the multidistrict litigation for claims related to the firefighting agent aqueous film forming foam (AFFF) has denied a motion to remand a lawsuit filed by Wausau, Wis., against paper mills and other industrial facilities for alleged contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), ruling that the city’s motion “completely ignores the logic” of the transfer order issued by the U.S. Judicial Panel on Multidistrict Litigation (JPMDL or JPML).
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April 17, 2026
TULSA, Okla. — On the heels of an Oklahoma federal judge denying a series of proposed joint consent judgments that would have settled decades-long disputes between the state and several poultry plant operators for their roles in discharging chicken litter into the Illinois River Watershed (IRW), the plant operators have appealed to the 10th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals, where a series of other appeals from the original judgment remain pending.
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April 14, 2026
SAN FRANCISCO — A Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel affirmed dismissal of an amended complaint filed by a group of youths alleging that they were damaged by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s alleged failure to prevent climate change and the agency’s allegedly discriminatory policies against children, holding that the lower court did not abuse its discretion and agreeing that the plaintiffs lacked standing to maintain their suit and failed to state a viable injury-in-fact to their equal protection rights.
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April 13, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Despite calling the underlying Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling “erroneous,” the United States says that a U.S. Supreme Court petition for a writ of certiorari filed by a uranium processing company and its former owner asking the court to decide whether radiation-dose regulations for nuclear incidents provide the exclusive standard of care in public liability actions pursuant to the Price-Anderson Act (PAA) should be denied, stating that review by the high court “is not warranted at this time.”
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April 10, 2026
PENDLETON, Ore. — While Amazon Data Services Inc. (ADS) has agreed to pay $20.5 million in a class action settlement with a group of residents to resolve allegations that more than a dozen of its data centers in the Lower Umatilla Basin in Oregon contributed to groundwater contamination in violation of state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA), the defendants in a similar pending lawsuit can object to the terms, as stated in a joint motion to consolidate the two cases.
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April 09, 2026
ALLENTOWN, Pa. — An organization with a mission to protect the watersheds in southeastern Pennsylvania filed a federal lawsuit against the owner and operator of a toll grinding and pelletizing facility for “repeated and ongoing violations” of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the facility’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) general permit alleging that industrial activities have resulted in discharges of polluted stormwater into the nearby Delaware River.
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April 08, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federally recognized tribal nation in northern Wisconsin’s Bad River Watershed filed a federal suit in the District of Columbia on April 7 alleging that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers violated the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) through the “unlawful” authorization of the construction of 41 miles of pipeline slated to surround the tribe’s reservation on three sides.
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April 08, 2026
BALTIMORE — A federal judge in Maryland denied a motion filed by two state residents to reconsider the dismissal of several claims brought in a citizen suit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) alleging that Perdue Farms Inc. and its affiliates contaminated groundwater with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and caused “imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment,” finding that the residents “could not demonstrate standing as to harms to the environment” and failed to show clear error.
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April 07, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on April 6 denied a petition for rehearing following its denial of a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by the owners of shoreline property in Washington state who sought review of a Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals ruling affirming default judgment in favor of the United States after the owners were cited for violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) for failing to obtain federal permit before commencing construction of a bulkhead.
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April 06, 2026
PENDLETON, Ore. — A federal judge in Oregon granted a motion jointly filed by a group of residents and Amazon Data Services Inc. (ADS) to stay proceedings pending a proposed settlement in a class action suit filed against ADS alleging violations of state law and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) for contributing to groundwater contamination in the Lower Umatilla Basin.
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April 03, 2026
WASHINGTON, D.C. — Two petitions filed in the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals by nonprofit environmental advocacy groups, several states and other parties challenging the repeal of portions of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s 2024 Mercury and Air Toxics Standards (MATS) Rule were consolidated, while a federal District Court lawsuit filed by some of the same nonprofits remains in abeyance.
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April 03, 2026
AUSTIN, Texas — The state of Texas has sued the operators of a container company in state court seeking civil penalties and injunctive relief for violations of state codes pertaining to health and water quality following a chemical fire in Odessa, Texas, that the state argues has contaminated the air and local water supply with burning waste, plastic and chemicals.
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April 01, 2026
LOS ANGELES — After tweaking its complaint to shift potential legal responsibility, an environmental nonprofit agreed to dismiss the federal suit against the operator of a chemical manufacturing facility in Santa Fe Springs, Calif., alleging violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and its National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit by discharging polluted stormwater into surrounding drains and waters.
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March 31, 2026
NEW HAVEN, Conn. — A federal judge in Connecticut has dismissed, without further leave to amend, a putative class action alleging that Kimberly-Clark Corp. is the source of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) contamination in the local groundwater supply, ruling that the third amended complaint fails to plausibly allege that the plaintiffs’ injuries were caused by Kimberly-Clark.
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March 30, 2026
SAN JOSE, Calif. — The United States voluntarily dismissed a federal lawsuit it filed against two California cities over energy ordinances that would have banned natural gas infrastructure in newly constructed buildings after the cities rolled back the ordinances on their own due to an appellate court ruling that made enforcement unlawful.
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March 25, 2026
NEWARK, N.J. — A vacant industrial warehouse in a New Jersey township with only four toilets that the federal government is renovating into a large-scale immigration detention facility “is a logistics center fit for Amazon Prime packages, not people,” the state and township contend in a lawsuit filed in federal court against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) alleging environmental and logistical repercussions in violation of four federal laws.