In 2019, the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision in County of Maui V. Hawaii Wildlife Fund addressed when a permit is required under the Clean Water Act for discharges to groundwater.  Prior to Maui, it was a long standing debate as to when the Clean Water Act (CWA) in order to discharge to groundwater.  Traditionally,

On Friday, the Legislative Service Commission hosted a seminar discussing Ohio’s efforts to solve harmful algae blooms in its waterways including Lake Erie.  The seminar brought together researchers, government officials and business groups to discuss the science and solutions for addressing algae blooms.

The biggest takeaways from the seminar is that Ohio has a  very

For a long period of time, U.S. EPA exempted stormwater from coverage under the Clean Water Act. This was largely due to the fact that EPA had enough on to do in simply regulating discharges from traditional point sources of water pollution.  In 1987, Congress gave EPA the authority to regulate stormwater discharges from "presumptively

For over a decade, U.S. EPA has embarked on a national enforcement strategy regarding combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and sanitary sewer overflows (SSOs) from municipal wastewater treatment systems.  As part of the enforcement strategy, U.S. EPA has entered a large number of federal consent decrees which establish deadlines for the elimination of CSOs/SSOs.  These decrees