If you've been following the trajectory of the Obama administration's 2015 Clean Water Rule, then you know that the Trump administration has been keenly focused on a 'repeal and replace' strategy, issuing a rule in February that delayed applicability of the Clean Water Rule for two years.
But, in mid-August, a South Carolina court found that the Trump administration had not followed correct procedures when promulgating its delay rule, which revived the Clean Water Rule in 26 states.
In the latest swing of the pendulum, a letter from attorneys general in Texas resulted in a Texas judge granting a temporary injunction last week for three additional states: Texas, Louisiana, and Mississippi.
For now, the Clean Water Rule is stayed for 27 states, shown in red on the map, and in effect for 23 states, shown in blue.
A federal appeals court ruled last week that arsenic leaching into groundwater from Dominion Energy coal ash ponds is not a violation of the Clean Water Act.
While the court agreed that arsenic had indeed leached from the coal ash ponds into waterways, it disagreed with a lower court ruling that the discharge came from a point source.
Dominion's coal-fired power plant near the mouth of the Chesapeake Bay operated from 1953 until it was decommissioned in 2014.
