Tag: water

FIFTH DISTRICT HOLDS THAT COURTS MUST ALWAYS CONSIDER REASONABLENESS IN WATER USE DISPUTES; ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION NOT EXEMPT FROM INJUNCTION BOND REQUIREMENT

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FIFTH DISTRICT HOLDS THAT COURTS MUST ALWAYS CONSIDER REASONABLENESS IN WATER USE DISPUTES; ENVIRONMENTAL LITIGATION NOT EXEMPT FROM INJUNCTION BOND REQUIREMENT

In Bring Back the Kern v. City of Bakersfield (2025) 110 Cal.App.5th 322, the Fifth District Court of Appeal held that under Article X, Section 2 of the California Constitution, courts must always consider reasonableness when adjudicating the use of water, even if legislation exists that does not require such determination. The ruling also clarified that nominal bonds are not permissible in environmental litigation under Code of Civil Procedure section 529.

Background

Numerous public and private entities hold claims to the waters of the Kern River through a web of contracts, decrees, and agreements. The City of Bakersfield diverts water through multiple weirs along the river to manage and allocate flows under these rights. Historically, these diversions have prevented water from reaching Bakersfield. However, in 2023, an unusually large snowpack caused increased river flows, allowing water to flow into the City’s riverbeds.

Bring Back the Kern, along with several other non-governmental organizations, sued the City of Bakersfield, alleging violations of Fish & Game Code section 5937. Plaintiffs argued that the City was operating the weirs in a manner that reduced river flows below a volume sufficient to keep fish populations downstream in “good condition.” In addition, Plaintiffs sought and obtained a preliminary injunction directing the City to act in accordance with section 5937.

The City appealed the injunction, arguing that the court erroneously failed to consider the reasonableness of the imposed water use as mandated by Article X, Section 2 of the California Constitution.

The Court of Appeal’s Decision

“Reasonableness” Requirement

The Fifth District reversed the trial court, holding that because the provisions of Section 2 are self-executing, courts must always consider reasonableness when adjudicating competing water use claims, even when relevant statutes exist that have determined a certain use is per se reasonable.

The Court of Appeal determined that because Section 2 expressly requires the use of water be both “beneficial” and “reasonable,” the trial court should have conducted this analysis based on the facts before it prior to granting the injunction. According to the Court, though the California State Legislature deemed the use of water to keep fish in good condition reasonable, courts must make this determination based on the totality of the circumstances in each specific case.  A use determined to be reasonable by the Legislature in one instance may be unreasonable in another—and unreasonable or non-beneficial uses of water are prohibited under the California Constitution. Therefore, while statutes governing the use of water may operate “alongside” Section 2, they cannot outright supplant its provisions.

Bond Requirement

The Fifth District also made an impactful determination regarding the bond requirement for injunctions granted in environmental litigation.

The trial court required that the plaintiffs post only a nominal $1,000 bond as an undertaking for the preliminary injunction. The trial court noted, however, that there was a lack of clarity and conflicting case law regarding whether nominal bonds or waivers were permissible in environmental litigation.

Disagreeing with the trial court, the Court of Appeal found that Code of Civil Procedure section 529 was “quite clear” in its requirement that moving parties must post a bond tethered to the potential damages or costs associated with the injunction. The court noted that the statute provided only four exemptions to this rule, and environmental litigation was not one of them. The court could not insert an exception to Section 529 that did not exist, regardless of whether it was beneficial as a matter of public policy. Upon its order for remand, the Fifth District instructed that no future preliminary injunction could be permitted unless it was conditioned upon the furnishing of an appropriate bond.

– Adam Nir

The Future of Wetlands and Waters of the United States: U.S. Supreme Court Grants Review of Sackett v. EPA

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On January 24, 2022, the United States Supreme Court granted review of Sackett v. U.S. EPA (No. 21-454) to consider whether the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals set forth the proper test for determining whether wetlands constitute “waters of the United States” under the federal Clean Water Act. (33 U.S.C. § 1362(7).) The Supreme Court’s second grant of certiorari marks a pivotal development in a long-running legal battle between the Sacketts—an Idaho couple seeking to build a home near Priest Lake—and the EPA, which has maintained that the Sacketts’ property contains wetlands subject to federal jurisdiction and permitting.

Factual Background

The Sacketts own a residential lot in Bonner County, Idaho, that lies just north of Priest Lake. To prepare for construction of a house, the Sacketts filled part of their lot with dirt and rock. Several months later, the Sacketts received a compliance order from the EPA stating that the lot contained wetlands that were adjacent to Priest Lake, which was a “navigable water” within the meaning of section 502(7) of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and constituted “waters of the United States” within the meaning of 40 C.F.R. § 232.2. The compliance order found that the Sacketts violated the CWA by impermissibly discharging pollutants into navigable waters. The order directed the Sacketts to remove the fill and restore the lot to its original condition, or be subject to civil penalties.

March 2012: Initial Lawsuit & Supreme Court Decision

The Sacketts sought, but were denied, an administrative hearing before the EPA. The Sacketts thus filed suit in the U.S. District Court of Idaho, contending that the compliance order violated the Administrative Procedure Act and the Sacketts’ due process rights. The petition alleged the EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously by issuing the compliance order, and deprived the Sacketts of life, liberty, or property without due process of law in violation of the Fifth Amendment. The District Court dismissed the action due to lack of subject-matter jurisdiction. The Ninth Circuit affirmed, finding that the CWA precluded pre-enforcement judicial review of compliance orders, and that such preclusion does not violate the Fifth Amendments’ due process guarantee.

In 2012, the Supreme Court granted review of the Ninth Circuit’s decision to consider whether the EPA’s compliance order constituted a “final agency action” that could be subject to judicial review. The Supreme Court unanimously held in favor of the Sacketts, finding that the order had “all the hallmarks of APA finality.” In an opinion authored by the late Justice Scalia, the court held that the EPA’s order “determined” the “rights or obligations” of the Sacketts by imposing “legal consequences” that “flowed” from noncompliance with its terms. Because the EPA denied them an administrative hearing, the Sacketts possessed “no other adequate remedy in a court” so as to challenge the nature and scope of the order and administrative penalties therein.

August 2021: The Ninth Circuit’s Decision on Remand

On August 16, 2021, the Ninth Circuit issued its opinion on the merits of the Sacketts’ claims. The court of appeal held that the EPA reasonably determined that the Sacketts’ property contained wetlands. The court explained that Justice Kennedy’s interpretation and understanding of “significant nexus” in his concurring opinion in Rapanos v. United States (2006) 547 U.S. 715, provided the standard for determining when wetlands are regulated under the CWA. Applying that test, the panel held that the standard was satisfied because evidence in the record supported EPA’s conclusion that wetlands on the Sacketts’ property were adjacent to a jurisdictional tributary and that, together with a similarly situated wetlands complex, they had a significant nexus to Priest Lake, a navigable water that is regulated under the CWA.

January 2022: The Supreme Court’s Second Grant of Certiorari – Implications

Since the Supreme Court’s decision in Rapanos, most lower courts have relied on Justice Kennedy’s “significant nexus” test as the governing standard. Nevertheless, the split of opinion in Rapanos, coupled with the lack of executive rulemaking to clarify the scope of the EPA’s CWA jurisdiction, has created confusion. As such, the Supreme Court’s second grant of certiorari could mark a momentous step in the ongoing debate about the appropriate “WOTUS” test.

The Supreme Court will consider “whether the Ninth Circuit set forth the proper test for determining whether wetlands are ‘waters of the United States’ under the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1362(7).” The Sacketts urge the Court to adopt the four-justice plurality’s test in Rapanos, which, unlike the “significant nexus” test, would allow regulation of wetlands only when they have a continuous surface water connection to regulated waters of the United States. In contrast, the EPA maintains that a rule divergent from the significant nexus test would deprive the agency of “authority to protect wetlands separated from a navigable river by a small dune or other natural barrier, even if overwhelming scientific evidence showed that the wetlands significantly affect the river’s ‘chemical, physical, and biological integrity.’”

Though the Court will likely hear this case in October 2022, with a decision to follow in early 2023, it remains to be seen how the pending outcome will affect the EPA’s current implementation of, and revisions to, the “WOTUS” rule. Either way, the scope of federal jurisdiction in regulating and protecting the nation’s wetlands and navigable waters will be decided by our highest court yet again, hopefully yielding greater clarity on the issue rather than further muddying the waters.

– Bridget McDonald

FIRST DISTRICT UPHOLDS STATE WATER RESOURCES CONTROL BOARD’S RELIANCE ON CEQA’s MINISTERIAL EXEMPTION FOR REGISTRATION OF APPROPRIATION OF WATER FOR DOMESTIC USE UNDER THE WATER RIGHTS PERMITTING REFORM ACT

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In Mission Peak v. State Water Resources Control Board (2021) 72 Cal.App.5th 873, the First District Court of Appeal held that the State Water Resources Control Board’s (Board’s) registration process is ministerial and therefore exempt from CEQA.

Background

The Water Rights Permitting Reform Act of 1988 permits eligible persons to acquire a right to appropriate up to 10 acre-feet per year of  water for domestic or other specified uses by completing a registration process with the Board. Pursuant to this Act, the State Water Resources Control Board granted a small domestic use registration to two Alameda County property owners without conducting environmental review on the premise that the action was ministerial and thereby did not trigger CEQA.

Mission Peak Conservancy and Kelly Abreau (collectively, Mission Peak) sued the Board, alleging that it violated CEQA by approving the registration without conducting CEQA review. Mission Peak contended that the Board’s approval was discretionary and that it should have denied the registration because the property owners did not qualify for small domestic use and also because their registration form contained false information. The Board filed a demurrer, which the trial court sustained without leave to amend. Mission Peak appealed.

Court of Appeal’s Decision

The Court of Appeal determined that the Board’s registration process was indeed a ministerial act, not discretionary, and was therefore exempt from CEQA pursuant to Public Resources Code section 21080, subdivision (b)(1). As the court explained, “[m]inisterial projects involve ‘little or no personal judgment by the public official as to the wisdom or manner of carrying out the project.’ (Guidelines, § 15369.) . . . The test is whether the law governing the agency’s decision to approve the project gives it authority to require changes that would lessen the project’s environmental effects.”

The court determined the Board did not have such authority here. Although the Board has statutory authority to impose general conditions applicable to all registrations, it did not have authority “to place conditions on the . . . registration to lessen its environmental effects.” The Board determines whether a registration is compliant by applying a checklist of fixed criteria, and the registration is automatically deemed complete if it meets these criteria. Accordingly, there is no discretion involved in the registration, and it is therefore not subject to CEQA.

Specifically, the Court rejected Mission Peak’s argument that “a different agency, the Department of Fish and Wildlife, has discretion to impose conditions that could ameliorate the project’s environmental impacts” and therefore the the process is discretionary. Not so. As the court explained, another agency’s discretionary authority for its review cannot be imputed to the Board. Mission Peak then argued that “the project did not satisfy the requirements for a small domestic use registration because the [applicant] misrepresented facts,” and thereby the Board did have discretion in that it could deny the project or request changes to meet program requirements. But, “the test is whether the Board had the legal authority to impose environmentally beneficial changes as conditions of the project,” not whether the agency could request changes on an application or deny it.  Lastly, Mission Peak argued that the Board violated CEQA because the project did not meet program requirements. The court pointed out that “this is simply an argument that the Board made an erroneous ministerial decisions.” And such an error is not the basis for a CEQA claim. Plainly stated, “CEQA does not regulate ministerial decisions—full stop.”

– Veronika S. Morrison

First District Holds Regional Water Quality Control Board’s Failure to Impose Mitigation Requirements Through CEQA Process Did Not Preclude it from Later Imposing Those Requirements Pursuant to Its Authority Under the Porter-Cologne Act

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The First District Court of Appeal in Santa Clara Valley Water District v. San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (2020) 59 Cal.App.5th 199, held that CEQA did not preclude the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board, acting as a responsible agency under CEQA, from imposing additional waste discharge requirements via the Porter-Cologne Water Quality Control Act, beyond the mitigation measures imposed during the CEQA process.

Background

Every 10-20 years, the Upper Berryessa Creek—which drains from the Diablo Range Hills to the Coyote Creek tributary, and ultimately into the San Francisco Bay—floods the nearby areas of Milpitas and San Jose. In the 1980s, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers began working on plans to build a flood control project on the creek, but the project did not move forward until 2013, when construction of a nearby BART station that could be impacted by flooding was proposed.

In 2015, the Santa Clara Valley Water District (District), acting as the lead agency under CEQA, issued a Draft EIR for the project. That same month, the Corps applied to the San Francisco Bay Regional Water Quality Control Board (RWQCB) for a section 401 Clean Water Act certification for the project.

The District later issued the Final EIR for the project, and the RWQCB’s executive officer issued the section 401 certification. As a CEQA responsible agency, the RWQCB found that all impacts within its jurisdiction would be mitigated to less-than-significant levels but clarified that it would later consider waste discharge requirements (WDRs) pursuant to its authority under the Porter-Cologne Act to address impacts to waters and wetlands that were not handled by the section 401 certificate.

In 2017, when project construction was nearly complete, the RWQCB issued a WDR order that required the Corps and the District to provide addition mitigation for the project’s impacts to waters and wetlands. The order stated that it suspended and replaced the prior 401 certification.

The District filed a petition for writ of mandate against the RWQCB, challenging the WDR order under CEQA, as well as section 401 of the Clean Water Act, the Porter-Cologne Act, and other state laws. The trial court denied the petition. The District appealed.

Court of Appeal’s Decision

On appeal, the District argued the RWQCB violated CEQA because: (1) the RWQCB’s failure to impose mitigation requirements as part of the RWQCB’s CEQA review barred it from imposing mitigation via the WDR order; and (2) the RWQCB prejudicially abused its discretion by failing to support the mitigation requirements with substantial evidence. The Court of Appeal rejected both arguments.

Relying on CEQA Guidelines section 15096, the District argued that the RWQCB’s only opportunity to impose mitigation was through the CEQA process. CEQA Guidelines section 15096 provides that a responsible agency that disagrees with the adequacy of a lead agency’s EIR must either sue the lead agency within 30 days, be deemed to have waived any objections to the EIR, prepare a subsequent EIR if legitimate grounds exist, or, assume the role of a lead agency as provided by Guidelines section 15052, subdivision (a)(3). Because the RWQCB did not challenge the District’s certification of the EIR or find that a subsequent EIR was required, the District argued that the EIR was deemed adequate and no additional mitigation measure could be imposed. As explained by the court, however, Public Resources section 21174 includes a savings clause that makes clear that CEQA does not prevent an agency from exercising it independent authority under statutes other than CEQA. The court determined, therefore, that the RWQCB did not violate CEQA by issuing the WDRs because it did so pursuant to its duties under the Porter-Cologne Act. Although the District, acting as lead agency, had not imposed CEQA mitigation measures requiring WDRs, the RWQCB, as a responsible agency, was not precluded from separately discharging its authority under the Porter-Cologne Act. Although the appellate court noted that unified CEQA review and other environmental regulation should be the norm, there may be times when an agency’s own environmental regulation can take place after CEQA review, as recognized by Public Resources Code section 21174.

The court also rejected the District’s claim that the RWQCB’s WDR order imposed “excessive” mitigation that was not supported by substantial evidence. The court concluded that the District failed to engage in sufficient analysis of the evidence supporting the RWQCB’s conclusions, and therefore, failed to carry its burden. The court also concluded that the District’s arguments lacked merit even if they had been properly briefed because the RWQCB’s determinations were supported by substantial evidence.

– Bridget McDonald

State Water Board Votes to Adopt its Emergency Regulations

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On April 1, 2015, Governor Brown issued an executive order directing the State Water Resources Control Board to impose restrictions on water suppliers with the ultimate goal of achieving a statewide 25 percent reduction in potable urban water usage by February 2016. The order also requires certain water users to implement water efficiency measures and prohibits the use of potable water for some types of irrigation.

In response to this order, the Board released draft emergency drought regulations on April 18, subsequently amended on April 28. The regulations, designed to prevent the waste and unreasonable use of water and to promote water conservation, prohibit certain actions such as watering landscapes in a way that creates runoff, watering driveways and sidewalks, and serving water in restaurants except upon request. The regulations aim to conserve 1.3 million acre-feet of water over the next nine months. On May 5th, the Board voted to adopt the regulations.

The draft regulations reflect the input of more than 250 water agencies. Governor Brown has stated he will propose additional legislation to allow local agencies to enforce these regulations through methods such as the imposition of hefty fines for failure to comply with the restrictions.

The conservation savings standards for urban water suppliers will take effect June 1st. Prohibitions applying to all Californians will take effect immediately upon approval of the regulation by the Office of Administrative Law. More information can be found on the Board’s website.

In a Mercifully Brief Opinion, Court Holds that the Regional Water Quality Control Board May Establish Pollution Limits for Water as well as Sediment in Water Bodies in California

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The Second District Court of Appeal in Conway v. State Water Resources Control Board rejected claims that the Regional Water Quality Control Board improperly established “total maximum daily loads” or TMDLs. The court also rejected challenges to the Board’s compliance with CEQA in establishing TMDLs.

The Clean Water Act requires all states to identify polluted water bodies within their jurisdictions. For all such water bodies the state must set TMDLs, which is the maximum amount of pollutants (or load) that a water body can receive from point and nonpoint sources. The Regional Water Quality Control Board has established the TMDLs for pollutants in McGrath Lake. McGrath Lake is surrounded primarily by agricultural fields, as well as petroleum facilities, public roads, and a former landfill. The lake including its lake bed sediment is polluted with pesticides and polychlorinated byphenyls (PCBs).

Owners of private property on the lake will likely be held responsible for remediation of the pollution. They challenged the TMDL established for the lake, arguing that it may only be stated in terms of pollutants in the water. They contend the TMDL is impermissibly stated in terms of concentration of pollutants in lake bed sediment. On this basis, the petitioners argued that the TMDLs violate the Clean Water Act and the state Water Code. They also argued that the TMDL was adopted in violation of the CEQA. The trial court denied their petition for a writ of mandate. The Court of Appeal Sixth Appellate District affirmed, holding that for the purposes of establishing TMDL the lake is both its water and its sediment.

Petitioners’ unsuccessful theory was that  TMDL can only regulate the movement of pollutants into the water column, pointing out that the Code of Federal Regulations definition of a “Load” as the “amount of matter [contaminants] introduced into a receiving water.”

The court was not convinced. The court noted that in this case the sediment is wet, it is intermixed with the lake waters, and thus it is part of the lake. The Regional Board could reasonably determine that the lake bed sediment is not a distinct physical environment. Instead, the lake waters and the lake bed sediment form a single physical environment. Notably, pollutants in the sediment leach into the water. The court also noted that the federal regulations give the Board expansive authority for defining how TMDLs are measured, as appropriate to the circumstances: “TMDLs can be expressed in terms of either mass per time, toxicity, or other appropriate measure.”

Petitioners further argued that “other appropriate measure” for measuring TMDL could not include measurement by concentration in the sediment. Petitioners argued that this would present a “slippery slope” towards expansive regulation of activities on land, such as regulation of pesticide use on agricultural land.

The court seemed unwilling to follow petitioners down this rabbithole, reasoning: “But slipping down the slope stops where application of a law or regulation becomes unreasonable.”  If it would be unreasonable or absurd to interpret the Clean Water Act and its implementing regulations as applying to land miles from the lake, the law and regulations will not be so interpreted, it held. But this case was not concerned with land miles from the lake, but with the lake bed itself.

The court also rejected, in fairly summary terms, Petitioners’ CEQA challenge. Essentially, Petitioners argued that the Board, which complies with CEQA through a certified regulatory program, had to consider the impacts of whatever remediation activities would be needed to reach the established TMDLs. Petitioners further argued that “dredging” was the only feasible remediation technique, and so the Board had to evaluate the impacts of dredging. The court disagreed. It noted that the adoption of TMDLs was only the first step in the process. The environmental review for that was appropriately tiered, according to the court. The Board had neither planned nor proposed to adopt any particular method for cleanup at this time. Without discussing whether cleanup ought to be at least disclosed as a reasonably future phase of the Project, the court summarily dismissed the CEQA claims. It held cleanup was a decision for the future, and would be subject to further environmental review in the future.

 

EPA Releases Final Wetland Connectivity Report Clarifying “Significant Nexus”

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The US EPA recently released the final draft of its report on the Connectivity of Streams and Wetlands to Downstream Waters. The purpose of the report is to summarize current scientific understanding about the connectivity and mechanisms by which streams and wetlands affect the physical, chemical, and biological integrity of downstream waters. The focus of the review is on surface and shallow subsurface connections of small or temporary streams, nontidal wetlands, and certain open waters. The report stresses that it neither considers nor sets forth legal standards for Clean Water Act (CWA) jurisdiction, nor does it establish EPA policy.

In 2006, the US Supreme Court decided Rapanos v. United States, where it held that a geographically isolated body of water can be regulated under the CWA only if it has a “significant nexus” to “navigable waters” of the United States. The meaning of “significant nexus” was never clarified. The report on connectivity is meant, in part, to provide insight on this question.

According to the report, scientific evidence “unequivocally” demonstrates that streams, individually or cumulatively, exert a strong influence on the integrity of downstream waters. EPA found that wetlands and open waters in riparian areas and floodplains are physically, chemically, and biologically integrated with rivers via functions that improve downstream water quality. These functions include: the temporary storage and deposition of channel-forming sediment and woody debris; recharge of groundwater sustaining river baseflows; storage of floodwater; retention and transformation of nutrients, metals, and pesticides; and export of organisms or reproductive propogating materials to downstream waters. In addition to providing effective buffers to protect downstream waters from point source and nonpoint source pollution, wetlands and open waters form integral components of river food webs, providing nursery habitat for breeding fish and amphibians, colonization opportunities for stream invertebrates, and maturation habitat for stream insects.

The report recognizes that watersheds are integrated at multiple spatial and temporal scales by flows of surface water and groundwater, transport, transformation of physical and chemical materials, and movements of organisms. Connectivity of streams and wetlands to downstream waters occurs along a continuum that can be described in terms of frequency, duration, magnitude, timing, and rate of change of biotic fluxes to downstream waters. Variations in the degree of connectivity influence the range of functions that streams and wetlands provide. Thus, the incremental effects of individual streams and wetlands are cumulative across entire watersheds and must be evaluated in the context of other streams and wetlands.

DWR Increases Water Deliveries to State Agencies

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As California enters its fourth year of drought, the Department of Water Resources (DWR) is increasing the amount of State Water Project (SWP) water allocated to state agencies by 5 percent—from 10 percent of the requested amount to 15 percent. This translates to a total allocation of 635,759 acre-feet annually to 29 agencies, compared to the requested 4,172,686 acre-feet. DWR is able to make this increase thanks to early-December storms that raised reservoir water levels. Last year at this time, no water was initially allocated.

DWR states that this allocation is consistent with the long-term water supply contracts and public policy. DWR considered several factors prior to settling on this increase, such as existing storage, operational constraints (i.e., potential harm to endangered fish), and contractor demands. DWR may revise the allocations over the course of the year based on changing water supply and sustainability conditions.

The two largest regions in terms of water received are the San Joaquin Valley at 170,035 acre-feet, and Southern California at 394,433 acre-feet.

National Marine Fisheries Service Reverses Finding that CWA Streamlined Permitting Program Could Create Jeopardy Under ESA

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In a newly issued Biological Opinion, the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) has reversed its 2012 finding that the Clean Water Act’s (CWA) streamlined nationwide permitting program could result in jeopardy under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Nationwide permits govern actions that have limited environmental impacts, and streamlining is intended to expedite the permitting process for those actions. In contrast, activities the Army Corps of Engineers (Corps) determines may discharge dredged or fill material into waters of the United States, but do not qualify for coverage under a nationwide permit, must be authorized under individual 404 permits.

NMFS emphasized that though streamlining of nationwide permits is now considered acceptable under the ESA, new measures promulgated by the Corps will ensure species are protected. These measures include amending notification requirements, holding semi-annual staff meetings, and improving tracking of the permits’ authorized activities. The Corps also plans to issue guidance specifying that regulated entities must report injuries or death of certain marine species listed under the ESA.

The Corps’ new rules will require pre-construction notifications for activities in jurisdictional waters where impervious surface materials will be used and where the waters are inhabited by listed species or are designated critical habitat under the species law. The Corps also plans to modify a nationwide permit covering utility lines and authorization of some oil and gas infrastructure. The oil and gas industry is concerned that the Biological Opinion might result in limitations on the permit, creating an impasse on new energy infrastructure.

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