Clean Water Act Marks 50 Years as Lawyers Say Improvement Needed
Anna Wildeman, counsel in Troutman Pepper's Environmental + Natural Resources Practice Group, is quoted in the Bloomberg Law article, " Clean Water Act Marks 50 Years as Lawyers Say Improvement Needed."
The act's greatest success so far is the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, which requires permits for industrial and stormwater pollution in waterways, according to Anna Wildeman, counsel at Troutman Pepper Hamilton Sanders LLP in Washington.
"The CWA envisioned that states would be the primary regulator of the NPDES program, and the act set out procedures for states to receive delegated authority with EPA's approval," said Wildeman, who served as EPA principal deputy assistant administrator in the agency's Office of Water during the Trump administration.
"By and large, those programs run smoothly, protect water quality, and are fairly predictable for the regulated community," she said.
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Sackett's outcome will determine how many construction projects will need a Clean Water Act dredge-and-fill permit from the Corps of Engineers, but most states already sufficiently regulate more water bodies than qualify as WOTUS under the act, Wildeman said.
"This means that the Sackett decision will not change much for the vast majority of NPDES permits issued across the country, and states and stakeholder partners will need to continue innovating to address nonpoint source discharges and make meaningful watershed wide improvements," she said.