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The Supreme Court Muddied the Clean Water Act Yet Again

News Feed
Tuesday, March 4, 2025

The Supreme Court dealt another blow to federal environmental protections on Tuesday in a major water pollution case. In a 5–4 ruling in City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, the justices held that the Environmental Protection Agency could no longer hold certain polluters responsible when the cleanliness of American waterways fell below minimum acceptable standards.Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the court, ruled that the agency had gone beyond what the Clean Water Act allowed. “We hold that the two challenged provisions exceed the EPA’s authority,” he wrote. “The text and structure of the CWA, as well as the history of federal water pollution legislation, make this clear. And resorting to such requirements is not necessary to protect water quality.”In a dissenting opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the majority had badly misread the text and history of the Clean Water Act’s provisions at issue. (The court’s three liberal justices joined her.) But she also argued that her colleagues had done so in pursuit of a specific outcome that was at odds with what Congress had written.“Really, the Court’s argument reduces to the broader policy concern that it may be difficult for regulated entities to comply with receiving water limitations and that they may lack adequate notice of a violation,” she wrote. Those polluters could bring other types of legal challenges in those cases, Barrett explained, but “these concerns do not speak to the relevant question here, which is whether receiving water limitations comport with the Act.”The case represents yet another victory in the Roberts court for polluters, who have again persuaded five conservative justices to adopt stilted readings of environmental laws to reduce their regulatory burdens. The plaintiff in this case—one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the nation—is an unusual one. But the author of the majority opinion was not. Tuesday’s ruling is also a victory for Alito himself, who appears almost eager to rewrite the Clean Water Act more narrowly whenever the opportunity presents itself.At issue in the case is how the Clean Water Act—and, through it, the EPA—regulates offshore water pollution. The question is particularly important for San Francisco. Like many other major U.S. cities, it handles stormwater and wastewater through the same sewage system. That system is able to treat both types of water without issue under normal circumstances.When it rains or snows more than usual, however, the city’s sewer system discharges some of the overflow into the Pacific Ocean. That overflow typically consists of an untreated mixture of wastewater, stormwater, and various urban pollutants. That would violate the Clean Water Act, which generally prohibits the disposal of such pollutants into the nation’s waters.One of the EPA’s tools to combat water pollution under the Clean Water Act is to issue permits for facilities that routinely discharge pollutants into American waterways. Those permits allow the EPA to set certain requirements for would-be polluters to ensure that their outflows meet minimum safety and sanitary thresholds. In exchange for their compliance, permittees are immunized from public or private environmental lawsuits for the duration of the permit, relieving them of the expenses of litigation and short-term regulatory changes.San Francisco is challenging its current permit requirements on multiple grounds. The one that reached the high court in this particular case centered on what Alito called the permit’s “end-result requirements.” In addition to meeting certain minimum requirements at the outset, the EPA also can also levy penalties against permittees if the relevant body of water—which the court calls the “receiving waters”—falls below minimum quality standards.Alito concluded that the Clean Water Act gave the EPA no authority to impose such end-result requirements on would-be polluters. The law allows the agency to impose “any more stringent limitation” that is “necessary to meet” state and federal “water quality standards” established by law or by federal regulation. Alito argued that the term “limitation” only allowed restrictions before the fact, not afterward.“A provision that tells a permittee that it must do certain specific things plainly qualifies as a limitation,” he wrote. “Such a provision imposes a restriction ‘from without.’ But when a provision simply tells a permittee that a particular end result must be achieved and that it is up to the permittee to figure out what it should do, the direct source of restriction or restraint is the plan that the permittee imposes on itself for the purpose of avoiding future liability. In other words, the direct source of the restriction comes from within, not ‘from without.’”Barrett was not persuaded, to say the least. “Limitation,” she wrote, “is simply a synonym for ‘a restrictive condition.’” She noted that “limitations” based on end results were common in everyday life, like a college limiting scholarships to students who maintain a minimum GPA or an employer who limits bonuses to workers based on performance standards. The end-result requirements, Barrett explained, give “practical effect” to water-quality standards “by making them enforceable.”She also emphasized that the plaintiffs would still not be without options to challenge those conditions under her reading of the law. “There is no getting around it: The receiving water limitations are ‘limitations,’” she wrote. “If they are vague or unreasonable, they are vulnerable to challenge on one or both of those grounds. But even a vague or unreasonable limitation is still a ‘limitation.’”Barrett’s reference to Alito’s “broader policy concerns” when it comes to the Clean Water Act is a familiar one. Two years ago, in Sackett v. EPA, he wrote the majority opinion in a decision that sharply limited what types of wetlands count as the “waters of the United States,” the key term for the act’s jurisdiction. Alito held that only wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to larger bodies of water fell under the Clean Water Act’s terms.In that instance, Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the court’s new interpretation, which he argued was at odds with the statutory text. “The Court’s test narrows the Clean Water Act’s coverage of ‘adjacent’ wetlands to mean only ‘adjoining’ wetlands,” he wrote. “But ‘adjacent’ and ‘adjoining’ have distinct meanings.” Kavanaugh warned at length that the court’s misreading of the statutory text “will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”In a separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan agreed with Kavanaugh and argued that Alito’s misreading of the law was driven by his own policy preferences. She pointed to his own phrasing choices that depicted the EPA as a heavy-handed brute and ordinary Americans as its hapless victims. “Congress, [Alito] scolds, has unleashed the EPA to regulate ‘swimming pools and puddles,’ wreaking untold havoc on ‘a staggering array of landowners,’” she wrote. “Surely something has to be done; and who else to do it but this court? It must rescue property owners from Congress’s too-ambitious program of pollution control.”As evidence of his policy views, Kagan cited Alito’s references to “crushing consequences” for those caught in the EPA’s web. Alito—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—used the same adjective in Tuesday’s ruling. “When a permit contains such requirements,” he wrote in the San Francisco ruling, “a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards.” (Emphasis mine.)Alito’s opinion only carries the force of law because four of his colleagues agreed to it. At the same time, the opinions in Sackett and San Francisco speak volumes about the court’s priorities and sympathies. Alito hypothesized at one point about a city that “devise[d] a careful plan” for water quality, “diligently implement[ed]” that plan, and still faced “dire potential consequences” if it failed. The EPA is presumed at every turn to be an onerous, malevolent creature; American cities and companies are well-meaning actors who humbly seek the regulatory relief that only the Supreme Court can offer. Alito and his colleagues are all too happy to provide it, even when the Clean Water Act itself doesn’t.

The Supreme Court dealt another blow to federal environmental protections on Tuesday in a major water pollution case. In a 5–4 ruling in City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, the justices held that the Environmental Protection Agency could no longer hold certain polluters responsible when the cleanliness of American waterways fell below minimum acceptable standards.Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the court, ruled that the agency had gone beyond what the Clean Water Act allowed. “We hold that the two challenged provisions exceed the EPA’s authority,” he wrote. “The text and structure of the CWA, as well as the history of federal water pollution legislation, make this clear. And resorting to such requirements is not necessary to protect water quality.”In a dissenting opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the majority had badly misread the text and history of the Clean Water Act’s provisions at issue. (The court’s three liberal justices joined her.) But she also argued that her colleagues had done so in pursuit of a specific outcome that was at odds with what Congress had written.“Really, the Court’s argument reduces to the broader policy concern that it may be difficult for regulated entities to comply with receiving water limitations and that they may lack adequate notice of a violation,” she wrote. Those polluters could bring other types of legal challenges in those cases, Barrett explained, but “these concerns do not speak to the relevant question here, which is whether receiving water limitations comport with the Act.”The case represents yet another victory in the Roberts court for polluters, who have again persuaded five conservative justices to adopt stilted readings of environmental laws to reduce their regulatory burdens. The plaintiff in this case—one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the nation—is an unusual one. But the author of the majority opinion was not. Tuesday’s ruling is also a victory for Alito himself, who appears almost eager to rewrite the Clean Water Act more narrowly whenever the opportunity presents itself.At issue in the case is how the Clean Water Act—and, through it, the EPA—regulates offshore water pollution. The question is particularly important for San Francisco. Like many other major U.S. cities, it handles stormwater and wastewater through the same sewage system. That system is able to treat both types of water without issue under normal circumstances.When it rains or snows more than usual, however, the city’s sewer system discharges some of the overflow into the Pacific Ocean. That overflow typically consists of an untreated mixture of wastewater, stormwater, and various urban pollutants. That would violate the Clean Water Act, which generally prohibits the disposal of such pollutants into the nation’s waters.One of the EPA’s tools to combat water pollution under the Clean Water Act is to issue permits for facilities that routinely discharge pollutants into American waterways. Those permits allow the EPA to set certain requirements for would-be polluters to ensure that their outflows meet minimum safety and sanitary thresholds. In exchange for their compliance, permittees are immunized from public or private environmental lawsuits for the duration of the permit, relieving them of the expenses of litigation and short-term regulatory changes.San Francisco is challenging its current permit requirements on multiple grounds. The one that reached the high court in this particular case centered on what Alito called the permit’s “end-result requirements.” In addition to meeting certain minimum requirements at the outset, the EPA also can also levy penalties against permittees if the relevant body of water—which the court calls the “receiving waters”—falls below minimum quality standards.Alito concluded that the Clean Water Act gave the EPA no authority to impose such end-result requirements on would-be polluters. The law allows the agency to impose “any more stringent limitation” that is “necessary to meet” state and federal “water quality standards” established by law or by federal regulation. Alito argued that the term “limitation” only allowed restrictions before the fact, not afterward.“A provision that tells a permittee that it must do certain specific things plainly qualifies as a limitation,” he wrote. “Such a provision imposes a restriction ‘from without.’ But when a provision simply tells a permittee that a particular end result must be achieved and that it is up to the permittee to figure out what it should do, the direct source of restriction or restraint is the plan that the permittee imposes on itself for the purpose of avoiding future liability. In other words, the direct source of the restriction comes from within, not ‘from without.’”Barrett was not persuaded, to say the least. “Limitation,” she wrote, “is simply a synonym for ‘a restrictive condition.’” She noted that “limitations” based on end results were common in everyday life, like a college limiting scholarships to students who maintain a minimum GPA or an employer who limits bonuses to workers based on performance standards. The end-result requirements, Barrett explained, give “practical effect” to water-quality standards “by making them enforceable.”She also emphasized that the plaintiffs would still not be without options to challenge those conditions under her reading of the law. “There is no getting around it: The receiving water limitations are ‘limitations,’” she wrote. “If they are vague or unreasonable, they are vulnerable to challenge on one or both of those grounds. But even a vague or unreasonable limitation is still a ‘limitation.’”Barrett’s reference to Alito’s “broader policy concerns” when it comes to the Clean Water Act is a familiar one. Two years ago, in Sackett v. EPA, he wrote the majority opinion in a decision that sharply limited what types of wetlands count as the “waters of the United States,” the key term for the act’s jurisdiction. Alito held that only wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to larger bodies of water fell under the Clean Water Act’s terms.In that instance, Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the court’s new interpretation, which he argued was at odds with the statutory text. “The Court’s test narrows the Clean Water Act’s coverage of ‘adjacent’ wetlands to mean only ‘adjoining’ wetlands,” he wrote. “But ‘adjacent’ and ‘adjoining’ have distinct meanings.” Kavanaugh warned at length that the court’s misreading of the statutory text “will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”In a separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan agreed with Kavanaugh and argued that Alito’s misreading of the law was driven by his own policy preferences. She pointed to his own phrasing choices that depicted the EPA as a heavy-handed brute and ordinary Americans as its hapless victims. “Congress, [Alito] scolds, has unleashed the EPA to regulate ‘swimming pools and puddles,’ wreaking untold havoc on ‘a staggering array of landowners,’” she wrote. “Surely something has to be done; and who else to do it but this court? It must rescue property owners from Congress’s too-ambitious program of pollution control.”As evidence of his policy views, Kagan cited Alito’s references to “crushing consequences” for those caught in the EPA’s web. Alito—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—used the same adjective in Tuesday’s ruling. “When a permit contains such requirements,” he wrote in the San Francisco ruling, “a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards.” (Emphasis mine.)Alito’s opinion only carries the force of law because four of his colleagues agreed to it. At the same time, the opinions in Sackett and San Francisco speak volumes about the court’s priorities and sympathies. Alito hypothesized at one point about a city that “devise[d] a careful plan” for water quality, “diligently implement[ed]” that plan, and still faced “dire potential consequences” if it failed. The EPA is presumed at every turn to be an onerous, malevolent creature; American cities and companies are well-meaning actors who humbly seek the regulatory relief that only the Supreme Court can offer. Alito and his colleagues are all too happy to provide it, even when the Clean Water Act itself doesn’t.

The Supreme Court dealt another blow to federal environmental protections on Tuesday in a major water pollution case. In a 5–4 ruling in City and County of San Francisco v. EPA, the justices held that the Environmental Protection Agency could no longer hold certain polluters responsible when the cleanliness of American waterways fell below minimum acceptable standards.

Justice Samuel Alito, who wrote for the court, ruled that the agency had gone beyond what the Clean Water Act allowed. “We hold that the two challenged provisions exceed the EPA’s authority,” he wrote. “The text and structure of the CWA, as well as the history of federal water pollution legislation, make this clear. And resorting to such requirements is not necessary to protect water quality.”

In a dissenting opinion, Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote that the majority had badly misread the text and history of the Clean Water Act’s provisions at issue. (The court’s three liberal justices joined her.) But she also argued that her colleagues had done so in pursuit of a specific outcome that was at odds with what Congress had written.

“Really, the Court’s argument reduces to the broader policy concern that it may be difficult for regulated entities to comply with receiving water limitations and that they may lack adequate notice of a violation,” she wrote. Those polluters could bring other types of legal challenges in those cases, Barrett explained, but “these concerns do not speak to the relevant question here, which is whether receiving water limitations comport with the Act.”

The case represents yet another victory in the Roberts court for polluters, who have again persuaded five conservative justices to adopt stilted readings of environmental laws to reduce their regulatory burdens. The plaintiff in this case—one of the most environmentally conscious cities in the nation—is an unusual one. But the author of the majority opinion was not. Tuesday’s ruling is also a victory for Alito himself, who appears almost eager to rewrite the Clean Water Act more narrowly whenever the opportunity presents itself.

At issue in the case is how the Clean Water Act—and, through it, the EPA—regulates offshore water pollution. The question is particularly important for San Francisco. Like many other major U.S. cities, it handles stormwater and wastewater through the same sewage system. That system is able to treat both types of water without issue under normal circumstances.

When it rains or snows more than usual, however, the city’s sewer system discharges some of the overflow into the Pacific Ocean. That overflow typically consists of an untreated mixture of wastewater, stormwater, and various urban pollutants. That would violate the Clean Water Act, which generally prohibits the disposal of such pollutants into the nation’s waters.

One of the EPA’s tools to combat water pollution under the Clean Water Act is to issue permits for facilities that routinely discharge pollutants into American waterways. Those permits allow the EPA to set certain requirements for would-be polluters to ensure that their outflows meet minimum safety and sanitary thresholds. In exchange for their compliance, permittees are immunized from public or private environmental lawsuits for the duration of the permit, relieving them of the expenses of litigation and short-term regulatory changes.

San Francisco is challenging its current permit requirements on multiple grounds. The one that reached the high court in this particular case centered on what Alito called the permit’s “end-result requirements.” In addition to meeting certain minimum requirements at the outset, the EPA also can also levy penalties against permittees if the relevant body of water—which the court calls the “receiving waters”—falls below minimum quality standards.

Alito concluded that the Clean Water Act gave the EPA no authority to impose such end-result requirements on would-be polluters. The law allows the agency to impose “any more stringent limitation” that is “necessary to meet” state and federal “water quality standards” established by law or by federal regulation. Alito argued that the term “limitation” only allowed restrictions before the fact, not afterward.

“A provision that tells a permittee that it must do certain specific things plainly qualifies as a limitation,” he wrote. “Such a provision imposes a restriction ‘from without.’ But when a provision simply tells a permittee that a particular end result must be achieved and that it is up to the permittee to figure out what it should do, the direct source of restriction or restraint is the plan that the permittee imposes on itself for the purpose of avoiding future liability. In other words, the direct source of the restriction comes from within, not ‘from without.’”

Barrett was not persuaded, to say the least. “Limitation,” she wrote, “is simply a synonym for ‘a restrictive condition.’” She noted that “limitations” based on end results were common in everyday life, like a college limiting scholarships to students who maintain a minimum GPA or an employer who limits bonuses to workers based on performance standards. The end-result requirements, Barrett explained, give “practical effect” to water-quality standards “by making them enforceable.”

She also emphasized that the plaintiffs would still not be without options to challenge those conditions under her reading of the law. “There is no getting around it: The receiving water limitations are ‘limitations,’” she wrote. “If they are vague or unreasonable, they are vulnerable to challenge on one or both of those grounds. But even a vague or unreasonable limitation is still a ‘limitation.’”

Barrett’s reference to Alito’s “broader policy concerns” when it comes to the Clean Water Act is a familiar one. Two years ago, in Sackett v. EPA, he wrote the majority opinion in a decision that sharply limited what types of wetlands count as the “waters of the United States,” the key term for the act’s jurisdiction. Alito held that only wetlands with a “continuous surface connection” to larger bodies of water fell under the Clean Water Act’s terms.

In that instance, Justice Brett Kavanaugh dissented from the court’s new interpretation, which he argued was at odds with the statutory text. “The Court’s test narrows the Clean Water Act’s coverage of ‘adjacent’ wetlands to mean only ‘adjoining’ wetlands,” he wrote. “But ‘adjacent’ and ‘adjoining’ have distinct meanings.” Kavanaugh warned at length that the court’s misreading of the statutory text “will leave some long-regulated adjacent wetlands no longer covered by the Clean Water Act, with significant repercussions for water quality and flood control throughout the United States.”

In a separate dissent, Justice Elena Kagan agreed with Kavanaugh and argued that Alito’s misreading of the law was driven by his own policy preferences. She pointed to his own phrasing choices that depicted the EPA as a heavy-handed brute and ordinary Americans as its hapless victims. “Congress, [Alito] scolds, has unleashed the EPA to regulate ‘swimming pools and puddles,’ wreaking untold havoc on ‘a staggering array of landowners,’” she wrote. “Surely something has to be done; and who else to do it but this court? It must rescue property owners from Congress’s too-ambitious program of pollution control.”

As evidence of his policy views, Kagan cited Alito’s references to “crushing consequences” for those caught in the EPA’s web. Alito—perhaps intentionally, perhaps not—used the same adjective in Tuesday’s ruling. “When a permit contains such requirements,” he wrote in the San Francisco ruling, “a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards.” (Emphasis mine.)

Alito’s opinion only carries the force of law because four of his colleagues agreed to it. At the same time, the opinions in Sackett and San Francisco speak volumes about the court’s priorities and sympathies. Alito hypothesized at one point about a city that “devise[d] a careful plan” for water quality, “diligently implement[ed]” that plan, and still faced “dire potential consequences” if it failed. The EPA is presumed at every turn to be an onerous, malevolent creature; American cities and companies are well-meaning actors who humbly seek the regulatory relief that only the Supreme Court can offer. Alito and his colleagues are all too happy to provide it, even when the Clean Water Act itself doesn’t.

Read the full story here.
Photos courtesy of

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Scientists Hope Underwater Fiber-Optic Cables Can Help Save Endangered Orcas

Scientists from the University of Washington recently deployed a little over 1 mile of fiber-optic cable in the Salish Sea to test whether internet cables can monitor endangered orcas

SAN JUAN ISLAND, Wash. (AP) — As dawn broke over San Juan Island, a team of scientists stood on the deck of a barge and unspooled over a mile of fiber-optic cable into the frigid waters of the Salish Sea. Working by headlamp, they fed the line from the rocky shore down to the seafloor — home to the region's orcas.The bet is that the same hair-thin strands that carry internet signals can be transformed into a continuous underwater microphone to capture the clicks, calls and whistles of passing whales — information that could reveal how they respond to ship traffic, food scarcity and climate change. If the experiment works, the thousands of miles of fiber-optic cables that already crisscross the ocean floor could be turned into a vast listening network that could inform conservation efforts worldwide.The technology, called Distributed Acoustic Sensing, or DAS, was developed to monitor pipelines and detect infrastructure problems. Now University of Washington scientists are adapting it to listen to the ocean. Unlike traditional hydrophones that listen from a single spot, DAS turns the entire cable into a sensor, allowing it to pinpoint the exact location of an animal and determine the direction it’s heading.“We can imagine that we have thousands of hydrophones along the cable recording data continuously,” said Shima Abadi, professor at the University of Washington Bothell School of STEM and the University of Washington School of Oceanography. “We can know where the animals are and learn about their migration patterns much better than hydrophones.”The researchers have already proven the technology works with large baleen whales. In a test off the Oregon coast, they recorded the low-frequency rumblings of fin whales and blue whales using existing telecommunications cables.But orcas present a bigger challenge: Their clicks and calls operate at high frequencies at which the technology hasn’t yet been tested.The stakes are high. The Southern Resident orcas that frequent the Salish Sea are endangered, with a population hovering around 75. The whales face a triple threat: underwater noise pollution, toxic contaminants and food scarcity.“We have an endangered killer whale trying to eat an endangered salmon species,” said Scott Veirs, president of Beam Reach Marine Science and Sustainability, an organization that develops open-source acoustic systems for whale conservation.The Chinook salmon that orcas depend on have declined dramatically. Since the Pacific Salmon Commission began tracking numbers in 1984, populations have dropped 60% due to habitat loss, overfishing, dams and climate change.Orcas use echolocation – rapid clicks that bounce off objects – to find salmon in murky water. Ship noise can mask those clicks, making it difficult for them to hunt.If DAS works as hoped, it could give conservationists real-time information to protect the whales. For instance, if the system detects orcas heading south toward Seattle and calculates their travel speed, scientists could alert Washington State Ferries to postpone noisy activities or to slow down until the whales pass.“It will for sure help with dynamic management and long-term policy that will have real benefits for the whales,” Veirs said.The technology would also answer basic questions about orca behavior that have eluded scientists, such as determining whether their communication changes when they’re in different behavioral states and how they hunt together. It could even enable researchers to identify which sound is coming from a particular whale — a kind of voice recognition for orcas.The implications extend far beyond the Salish Sea. With some 870,000 miles (1.4 million kilometers) of fiber-optic cables already installed underwater globally, the infrastructure for ocean monitoring largely exists. It just needs to be tapped. “One of the most important challenges for managing wildlife, conserving biodiversity and combating climate change is that there’s just a lack of data overall,” said Yuta Masuda, director of science at Allen Family Philanthropies, which helped fund the project.The timing is critical. The High Seas Treaty enters into force in January, which will allow for new marine protected areas in international waters. But scientists still don’t understand how human activities affect most ocean species or where protections are most needed. A dataset as vast as the one the global web of submarine cables could provide might help determine which areas should be prioritized for protection.“We think this has a lot of promise to fill in those key data gaps,” Masuda said.Back on the barge, the team faced a delicate task: fusing two fibers together above the rolling swell. They struggled to align the strands in a fusion splicer, a device that precisely positions the fiber ends before melting them together with an electric current. The boat rocked. They steadied their hands and tried again, and again. Finally, the weld held. Data soon began flowing to a computer on shore, appearing as waterfall plots — cascading visualizations that show sound frequencies over time. Nearby, cameras trained on the water stood ready so that if a vocalization was detected, researchers could link a behavior with a specific call.All that was left was to sit and wait for orcas.The Associated Press receives support from the Walton Family Foundation for coverage of water and environmental policy. The AP is solely responsible for all content. For all of AP’s environmental coverage, visit https://apnews.com/hub/climate-and-environmentCopyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.Photos You Should See – Oct. 2025

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New York to appeal after judge OKs radioactive Indian Point water in the Hudson

Governor Kathy Hochul has confirmed that the Indian Point nuclear plant will not be reopened, despite a federal judge's ruling that the state's Save the Hudson Act, which aimed to prevent the dumping of radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River, was invalid.

ALBANY, N.Y. (NEXSTAR) — A federal judge in New York last month struck down the state's Save the Hudson Act, a law that aimed to prevent Holtec International, the owner of the decommissioned Indian Point nuclear plant, from dumping over a million gallons of radioactive wastewater into the Hudson River. Still, despite the ruling and her openness to expand nuclear power in the state, Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) maintains that the site will not reopen. "Let me say this plainly: No," Hochul wrote in a letter to Westchester County Executive Ken Jenkins on Friday, which can be read at the bottom of this story. Entergy, the previous owners of the Indian Point Energy Center, shut down its final reactor, Unit 3, in April 2021. Holtec bought the three-unit nuclear power plant located in the northwestern corner of Westchester County on the eastern bank of the Hudson River in May 2021. Use it or lose it: Summer EBT food benefits expiring Friday The plant is undergoing a decommissioning process that includes removing equipment and structures, reducing residual radioactivity, and dismantling the facility. Holtec projects that process to finish by 2033. The U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York sided with Holtec in a lawsuit they filed in April 2024, agreeing that state law can't block the discharge of radioactive wastewater from nuclear sites being decommissioned. The court found that only the federal government has that authority, because federal law like the Atomic Energy Act overrules the state under the Supremacy Clause of the U.S. Constitution. Hochul launches $1B clean climate plan as state, federal energy agendas diverge The judge determined that S6893/A7208 wasn't meant to protect the radiological safety of the public or the environment, which falls under federal jurisdiction. Gov. Kathy Hochul and Attorney General Letitia James announced their intent to appeal the decision, arguing that the law represents vital protections for the iconic river and the economic health of the region through tourism and real estate values. Jenkins applauded the decision to appeal, saying, "The Hudson River is the lifeblood of our region—a source of recreation, natural beauty, and economic vitality—and we must do everything in our power to protect it." And in the letter to Jenkins, Hochul directly addressed the concern that the state government may plan to reopen Indian Point or build small modular reactors on the site. NYC storm cancels Columbus Day parade amid Indigenous Peoples Day debate "There have been no discussions or plans," the governor wrote. "I would not support efforts to do so." Riverkeeper, an environmental advocacy group, called the ruling a blow to the progress made in restoring the Hudson River. They worked with local officials to pass the Save the Hudson Act in 2023 after Holtec announced plan to release the wastewater. New York’s 2040 energy grid: Nuclear power, public renewables, and fracked gas pipelines The wastewater in question is contaminated with tritium, a radioactive isotope of hydrogen created during the nuclear fission process. Tritium—whose half-life is 12 years—bonds with oxygen, meaning the wastewater cannot be filtered. S6893/A7208, signed by Hochul in August 2023, lets the attorney general enforce the ban with civil penalties of $37,500 for the first day of violation, $75,000 for the second, and $150,000 per violation thereafter. It came in response to Holtec's initial plan to put between 1.3 and 1.5 million gallons of tritiated water from the spent fuel pools, reactor cavity, and other holding tanks into the Hudson. The company maintained that discharge would be the safest option for the tritiated water, that the planned release represented just 5% of what the plant discharged historically, and that the plan followed federal guidelines. Data challenges tax flight claims in New York The company wanted to start dewatering with three 18,000-gallon batches—45,000 gallons in total—in May 2023. Holtec paused their initial plan so the state could perform independent sampling and analysis of the water. Federal water standards set the maximum contaminant level for tritium at 20,000 picocuries per liter, though California, for example, aims to say below 400 picocuries of tritium per liter. Regulations on radioactive releases from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission, the federal body managing decommissions, are based on the dose to the public, regardless of the volume of the discharge. NRC has an internal goal to keep the dose from liquid releases below three millirem per year at the release point, and a legal limit of 25 millirem per year. Power struggle: New York lawmakers, environmentalists clash over electricity The calculated dose to the public from Indian Point in 2021 was about 0.011966 millirem—about one-thousandth of the federal cap. Plus, NRC allows several disposal methods, including transferring the waste, storing it for decay, or releasing it into the environment. Still, critics said the discharge would undermine local economies, erode public trust, and doom the Hudson even as more New Yorkers swim, boat, fish, and work on and in the river. Riverkeeper said there are alternatives, like storing the water for its 12-year half-life. They want the contaminated water to be held at Indian Point for at least 12 years, when its radioactivity will be reduced by half, before exploring any alternative disposal. Gas pipelines eye return to New York But delaying the discharge process could force lay offs of specialized Holtec workers. The company already extended decommissioning timelines at two other sites—Pilgrim and Oyster Creek—from eight to 12 years because of inflated costs and poor market performance. In the letter to Jenkins, Hochul confirmed her support for nuclear as part of the state's energy strategy, but that any new plant would be upstate, and only in communities that want it. Hochul said that downstate New York needs to rely on energy sources like the Champlain Hudson Power Express transmission line, set to bring hydroelectricity from Canada. New York Republican Senators propose scaling back climate laws She characterized the decision to close Indian Point as a hasty failure that caused emissions to rise. It happened before her administration, Hochul argued, and the state "lost 25% of the power that was going to New York City without having a Plan B." Take a look at the letter below: Hochul Indian point letter to JenkinsDownload Arizona AG threatens legal action if Johnson doesn't seat recently elected Democrat FDA expands cinnamon recall to 16 brands with elevated lead levels New York to appeal after judge OKs radioactive Indian Point water in the Hudson Bondi says Facebook has removed page targeting ICE agents after DOJ outreach Live updates: Trump to honor Kirk with Medal of Freedom; Senate to vote as shutdown hits Day 14

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Waste
Energy

Maryland’s Conowingo Dam Settlement Reasserts State’s Clean Water Act Authority but Revives Dredging Debate

Maryland this month finalized a $340 million deal with Constellation Energy to relicense the Conowingo Dam in Cecil County, ending years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty. The agreement restores the state’s authority to enforce water quality standards under the Clean Water Act and sets a possible precedent for dozens of hydroelectric relicensing cases nationwide expected […]

The new agreement commits $340 million in environmental investments tied to the Conowingo Dam’s long-term operation, setting an example of successful citizen advocacy.By Aman AzharMaryland this month finalized a $340 million deal with Constellation Energy to relicense the Conowingo Dam in Cecil County, ending years of litigation and regulatory uncertainty. The agreement restores the state’s authority to enforce water quality standards under the Clean Water Act and sets a possible precedent for dozens of hydroelectric relicensing cases nationwide expected in coming years.

Water
Energy

Fish Kill at Clear Lake Reveals a Seven-Foot Sturgeon Surprise 

A problem lake was doing pretty well this year. Then came a series of unfortunate water-quality events. The post Fish Kill at Clear Lake Reveals a Seven-Foot Sturgeon Surprise  appeared first on Bay Nature.

Tiny silver fish float up at Clear Lake in August. Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians records indicate this was the biggest fish kill since 2017. (Courtesy of Luis Santana)As Luis Santana motored out onto Clear Lake this August, it seemed at first like a normal summer day out on the water: warm air, cloudy skies, and the wide lake waters full of what seemed like bubbles from the waves.  “Then I stopped, and I was like, Oh my god,” Santana, a fisheries biologist with the Robinson Rancheria tribe, recalls. Those weren’t bubbles; they were millions of dead threadfin shad, and others. “I saw literally every species of fish found in the lake,” except for the Clear Lake tule perch, Santana says. The measurements he took that day revealed what likely killed them: a near-total lack of oxygen in the lake. The fish had, essentially, suffocated. Amid the silver-lined shores, one fish washed up that no one had known to be a resident: a dead seven-foot-long white sturgeon. It was Clear Lake’s first on record. No one knows for sure how it got into the waters, but Santana thinks it died with the shad. White sturgeon (Acipenser transmontanus), the biggest freshwater fish in North America, live in the Bay-Delta. They became a candidate for listing as a threatened species under the California Endangered Species Act after a 2022 harmful algal bloom that killed hundreds of them.  Big ’un: A white sturgeon—in Clear Lake? CDFW says the average sturgeon caught in the Delta these days is about 3.6 feet long, and it is rare to encounter fish larger than 6.5 feet long in California. This one was seven feet. (Courtesy of Luis Santana)This fall’s fish die-off is the lake’s largest since at least 2017, according to records from the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians. And it is yet another environmental black mark for a lake—California’s largest freshwater body—that has been consistently troubled by poor water quality. Now, scientists are uncovering the exact cause of the die-off—and analyzing the sturgeon for more answers. For Angela DePalma-Dow, a lake scientist and executive director of the Lake County Land Trust, the event reminds her: “There’s so much we can learn from Clear Lake.”  As a five-year-old, Santana spent every summer day swimming in Clear Lake. That’s a distant dream now. The summer lake—despite the name—is rarely clear; more often, it’s clouded dirty green as harmful algal blooms take over the waters. Sometimes, Santana thinks the water smells like sewage. “I don’t think my kids have ever swam in Clear Lake,” Santana says.  Fish die-offs and fish kills are a consequence of these impaired conditions, especially the frequent harmful algal blooms (HABs), during which algae decompose and strip the water of oxygen (while also filling the water with cyanotoxins). The Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians has tracked harmful algal blooms in Clear Lake since 2014. The program started after five years of “thick, noxious blooms covering [Clear Lake’s] surface” (as the tribe writes in a history of the program) and no regular monitoring from the state, despite recommendations from the California Office of Environmental Health Hazard Assessment. “We just needed to have more data,” says Sarah Ryan, the environmental director at the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians.  “It seems like they have fish kills every year,” says Ben Ewing, who studies the endemic Clear Lake hitch, a large minnow, at the California Department of Fish and Wildlife. “I lost track with how many.” In 2017, the state Legislature formed a committee to restore the lake, citing high mercury levels, dangerous contaminants in fish, and the regular HABs; to date, it has led to tens of millions in state funding for research, restoration, and education projects on Clear Lake, including helping sustain water quality monitoring cut by the state during the Covid pandemic.  Cyanobacteria bloom at Redbud Park, in Clear Lake’s southeast arm, in July 2020. Big Valley Pomo EPA’s sampling found toxins at a “warning” level. The lake is frequently beset by harmful algal blooms. (Courtesy of Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians)This die-off, Ewing says, caught lake-watchers off guard because 2025 seemed like the year Clear Lake might escape a fish kill. The characteristic pea soup of harmful algal blooms had been noticeably absent. Instead, the cause was likely a perfect storm of other conditions, says Ewing. “Everything had to line up correctly for this to happen,” he says.  Two bountiful water seasons laid the ground for it, DePalma-Dow explains. Fish populations—especially nonnative bait fish like shad—boomed with the increased water, which also meant some fish naturally died. She speculates that as their bodies decomposed, they stripped oxygen from the water column. Then, this fall, heavy winds came and distributed the low-oxygen water throughout the water column. A series of cloudy mornings arrived, during which the lake’s aquatic plants couldn’t respire oxygen back into the water. So more fish likely died, triggering oxygen levels to further plummet. Eventually, conditions became fatal for all species of fish. Santana says he measured “basically zeroes on every level” for dissolved oxygen through the water column. DePalma-Dow says this process is just the lake self-regulating, as fish populations outstrip the oxygen available. “This is totally not surprising for a lake cycle event,” she says. “This is a big, huge, natural system.” Santana blames human disturbance for the die-off. “We took away all the habitat that could potentially negate any of these effects,” he says. Clear Lake has lost up to 90 percent of its wetlands, he says, and creeks that might once have provided an infusion of oxygen-rich water into the lake now run dry in May and June. “There’s just so many things we’re taking and taking and not giving back,” he says.  A satellite image of Clear Lake during a May 2024 algal bloom. The emerald color doesn’t tell you whether toxins are present, though. That requires water sampling, which the Big Valley Band of Pomo Indians EPA has been doing since 2014. (Sentinel-2 satellite, via the Copernicus browser)In lieu of those natural processes, technological solutions are being considered: Researchers from UC Davis are exploring installing oxygenators in Clear Lake that could trap nutrients in the sediment under a thin layer of oxygen, theoretically reducing the number of harmful algal blooms—and, possibly, keeping oxygen levels higher so more fish can breathe. “That would be one of the hopeful outcomes,” says DePalma-Dow. Neither the state nor county put out a press release about the die-off, Ryan notes. “It’s always better if you can anticipate the questions and try to get information out.” For now, those living by the lake watch (and smell) the dead fish decompose. “There’s really no post support,” she says.  The August die-off on Clear Lake silvered the shoreline. It claimed fish of “literally every species,” says Luis Santana, a Robinson Rancheria fisheries biologist. (Larger fish on shore courtesy of Luis Santana; silvery shoreline by Shawna McEwan; closeup by Sophia Zesati) Fish populations will likely recover, scientists say. Many fish probably survived, in nooks and crannies. With good winter rains, they can breed and repopulate the waters by spring. This die-off is just another challenge for a beleaguered lake.  As for the sturgeon? USGS scientists were trying to figure out how old it was, and hoping to answer when it got to the lake, but the government shutdown has since paused their work. And they cannot answer questions about their research until the shutdown ends. Santana’s observations of the sturgeon showed it was a female with eggs. For now, the giant fish is a reminder of the treasures that may hide in Clear Lake’s murky waters. “Every year is a mystery and surprise,” DePalma-Dow says.

Water
Education
Health

Millions of households face jump in water bills after regulator backs more price rises

Competition watchdog agrees requests from Anglian, Northumbrian, Southern, Wessex and South East to raise household billsBusiness live – latest updatesWater bills for millions of households in England will increase by even more than expected after the competition regulator gave the green light for five water suppliers to raise charges to customers – but rejected most of the companies’ demands.An independent group of experts appointed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided provisionally to let the companies collectively charge customers an extra £556m over the next five years, it said on Thursday. That was only 21% of the £2.7bn that the firms had requested. Continue reading...

Water bills for millions of households in England will increase by even more than expected after the competition regulator gave the green light for five water suppliers to raise charges to customers – but rejected most of the companies’ demands.An independent group of experts appointed by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) decided provisionally to let the companies collectively charge customers an extra £556m over the next five years, it said on Thursday. That was only 21% of the £2.7bn that the firms had requested.The five companies – Anglian, Northumbrian, Southern, Wessex and South East – together serve 14.7 million customers. The changes will add 3% on average to those companies’ bills, on top of the 24% increase previously allowed.The companies appealed to the CMA in February for permission to raise bills by more than allowed previously by the industry regulator, Ofwat. They argued they needed more to meet environmental standards.Water bills have become the subject of significant political controversy in recent years in the UK amid widespread disgust over leaks of harmful sewage into Britain’s rivers and seas.Emma Hardy, the water minister, said: “I understand the public’s anger over bill rises – that’s why I expect every water company to offer proper support to anyone struggling to pay.“We’ve made sure that investment cash goes into infrastructure upgrades, not bonuses, and we’re creating a tough new regulator to clean up our waterways and restore trust in the system.”English and Welsh water companies are mostly privately owned, but the prices the local monopolies can charge customers are regulated by Ofwat over five-year periods. Ofwat in December said average annual household bills could rise by 36% to £597 by 2030 to help pay for investment.Ofwat said the companies could spend £104bn in total, paid by consumers.The allowed bill increases stopped well short of the water companies’ requests. The CMA said the expert panel had largely reject companies’ funding requests for new activities and projects beyond those agreed by Ofwat. However, the panel did allow more money for returns to investors, to reflect sustained high interest rates since the bills increases were approved.Anglian Water, serving the east of England and Hartlepool, asked for the average annual household bill to rise to £649 – a 10% increase – but was granted only £599, or 1%. Northumbrian, mainly in north-east England, asked for £515, or 6%, and was given £495, also 1%.South East Water, which only provides drinking water and not sewage services in several home counties, asked for an 18% increase to £322, but was allowed 4% to £286. Southern Water, on England’s south-east coast, asked for a 15% increase to £710. That would have been the highest bill in England and Wales, but it was allowed only a 3% increase to £638.Wessex Water in south-west England asked for an 8% increase to £642, and was granted the biggest proportional increase on appeal of 5% to £622.The CMA and other regulators have faced pressure from the Labour government to put more focus on economic growth. The chancellor, Rachel Reeves, this year appointed former Amazon boss Doug Gurr to lead the CMA.Kirstin Baker, the chair of the group that decided on the appeals, said: “We’ve found that water companies’ requests for significant bill increases, on top of those allowed by Ofwat, are largely unjustified.skip past newsletter promotionSign up to Business TodayGet set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morningPrivacy Notice: Newsletters may contain information about charities, online ads, and content funded by outside parties. If you do not have an account, we will create a guest account for you on theguardian.com to send you this newsletter. You can complete full registration at any time. For more information about how we use your data see our Privacy Policy. We use Google reCaptcha to protect our website and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.after newsletter promotion“We understand the real pressure on household budgets and have worked to keep increases to a minimum, while still ensuring there is funding to deliver essential improvements at reasonable cost.”For affected households, the price increases will add to inflation on the cost of living. Mike Keil, chief executive of the Consumer Council for Water, which represents consumers, said “further increases will be very unwelcome”, and questioned whether the CMA should have allowed higher returns for investors.“There is a danger the customers of these companies will end up paying more, without seeing any additional improvements in return,” he said.Environmental groups have questioned why companies are allowed to return cash to shareholders while continuing to pollute Britain’s rivers and seas. James Wallace, chief executive of River Action, a campaign group, said: “Once again, water bill payers are forced to shoulder the cost of decades of failure.“Millions of households in England face higher bills while rivers continue to suffer from mismanagement by privatised water companies. In 2024 alone, four of these five companies were responsible for at least 1.4m hours of sewage discharges into rivers and seas – a stark illustration of ongoing environmental harm.”The CMA group’s decision will also be carefully considered by Thames Water, Britain’s biggest water company with 16 million customers. Thames also appealed initially but has agreed to pause it while the utility and its creditors negotiate with Ofwat over a restructuring plan to try to cut its debt burden and prevent it collapsing into temporary government control.Thames is still considering a request for a further £4bn. People close to Thames Water had criticised Ofwat’s approach to the price determination, arguing that the utility needed much more cash to turn around its performance on pollution.The best public interest journalism relies on first-hand accounts from people in the know.If you have something to share on this subject you can contact the Business team confidentially using the following methods.Secure Messaging in the Guardian appThe Guardian app has a tool to send tips about stories. Messages are end to end encrypted and concealed within the routine activity that every Guardian mobile app performs. This prevents an observer from knowing that you are communicating with us at all, let alone what is being said.If you don't already have the Guardian app, download it (iOS/Android) and go to the menu. Scroll down and click on Secure Messaging. When asked who you wish to contact please select the Guardian Business team.SecureDrop, instant messengers, email, telephone and postIf you can safely use the tor network without being observed or monitored you can send messages and documents to the Guardian via our SecureDrop platform.Finally, our guide at theguardian.com/tips lists several ways to contact us securely, and discusses the pros and cons of each. Illustration: Guardian Design / Rich Cousins

Water
Business
Pollution

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BlackWater

BlackWater is a documentary about protecting Florida Springs, focusing on the Ichetucknee River. The Florida Springs have been displaying a decline in quality and will continue to if we do not make a change. I encourage you to visit and experience the Florida Springs system, as it truly is a religious experience. Produced by Ethan Beckley, Annick Joseph, and Jiahui Shen.

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The Cost of Sand

The Cost of Sand highlights the potential destruction of a crucial bio-link on the edge of the Ramsar wetlands from proposed expansion of sandmining in Bass Coast, Victoria. It features interviews with scientists and conservationists about the significance of preserving the last remnant coastal bushland in the region and the vulnerable wildlife and ecosystems it supports.

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Sustainable Living with Patrick Lang

A day in the life of Patrick Lang living a sustainable life in Malibu… filmed before his home and community were consumed by fire in the fall of 2018.

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Protecting the River Krupa

With Western Europe’s waterways clogged by thousands of dams, Balkan countries are rallying to protect the continent’s last free-flowing rivers—before it’s too late. In Croatia's popular tourist region of Dalmatia, The Nature Conservancy and its partners helped protect the Krupa River in perpetuity, one of the first conservation wins of its kind in the region.

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Still River, Silent Jungle

When a novel dam proposal threatens indigenous communities in the Bolivian Amazon, an Uchupiamona woman named Ruth Alipaz Cuqui must step into the unknown and become a spokesperson for her people. To the Uchupiamona people, the river has its own life and personality, just as a woman does. Returning to her land for guidance, Ruth and her people explore an alternative future for their rivers based on adventure tourism and whitewater rafting. While opposing powers much bigger than her, she must come to terms with how much she is willing to risk to protect her river and her people.

Water
Indigenous
Activism

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