Chesapeake Bay

The following resources represent a collection of federal and Pennsylvania court decisions relating to the Chesapeake Bay. While the Center for Agricultural and Shale Law makes every effort to provide all relevant court opinions, this list is not exhaustive. Furthermore, it may be necessary to view certain decisions via an online legal research database or at the courthouse where an opinion was rendered.

Am. Farm Bureau Fed'n v. EPA, 792 F.3d 281 (3rd Cir. 2015).

• The court found EPA regulation “[e]stablishing a comprehensive, watershed-wide TMDL—complete with allocations among different kinds of sources, a timetable, and reasonable assurance that it will actually be implemented—is reasonable and reflects a legitimate policy choice by the agency in administering a less-than-clear statute.”

• Court dismisses plaintiffs requests that pollution trading and offsets in the Chesapeake total maximum daily loads be nullified due to lack of subject matter jurisdiction and failure to state a claim.

• “Agricultural stormwater discharge” includes litter and manure produced by a CAFO during a precipitation event, since that is not point source discharge, it is  exempt from NPDES permit requirements.

• More information and court submitted documents.

• Plaintiffs failed to prove by a preponderance of the evidence that the poultry farm had discharged pollutants into waterways.

• Summary judgment granted based on court’s conclusion that the EPA acted arbitrarily and capriciously, in violation of the APA and CWA, by approving a sediment/total suspended solids TMDL that failed to manifest an aesthetic and recreational water quality standard.

• Granting defendant’s motion to dismiss plaintiffs Assateague Coastal Trust, Assateague Coastkeeper, and Kathy Phillips; denying defendant’s motion to dismiss on the grounds of the sufficiency of the notice as to the facts and the laws violated; denying defendant Perdue’s motion to dismiss them as a defendant; denying defendant’s motion to dismiss on the grounds that there was no continuing violation and whether the plaintiffs has sufficiently alleged a discharge from the Hudson Farm CAFO.

Fowler v. EPA, No. 1:09-cv-00005-CKK (D.D.C. filed Jan. 5, 2009)

• Settlement agreement signed on May 10, 2010, requiring the EPA to perform specific actions by certain dates pursuant to Chesapeake Bay restoration.

• Granting EPA’s motion to dismiss, or in the alternative, for summary judgment against a claim that EPA had the responsibility to establish a state’s TMDLs when that state was not developing the TMDLs adequately. EPA was under no statutory duty to consider the state’s pace of resolution.

• Granting in part and denying in part both plaintiffs’ and defendant’s motion for summary judgment; finding that the EPA did not abuse its discretion when it allowed the State of Maryland to establish and implement its TMDLs.

American Canoe Ass'n v. EPA, 54 F. Supp. 2d 621 (E.D. Va. 1999).

• Granting the motion to enter a consent decree between the plaintiff preservations organizations and defendant EPA concerning the schedules for the submission of TMDLs.

Chesapeake Bay Found. v. Bethlehem Steel Corp., 608 F. Supp. 440 (D. Md. 1985).

• Granting plaintiffs partial summary judgment with respect to incidents where defendant did not comply with its NPDES permit within a five year period.

• Sewer Auth. Of Scranton v. Pa. Infrastructure Inv. Auth. of Pa., 81 A.3d 1031 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Nov. 12, 2013)(upholding PENNVEST’s ability to write into loan agreements the right to receive excess nutrient credits generated)
• Borough of Bedford v. Commonwealth, 972 A.2d 53 (Pa. Commw. Ct. Apr. 14, 2009)(denying Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (DEP) request for summary relief because it was too early in the litigation to decipher whether DEP’s “Chesapeake Bay Tributary Strategy Implementation Plan for National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) Permitting” was policy or regulation; granting petitioner’s motion to add new petitioners)