Geoscience Policy Monthly Review
october 2013
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water
Court rules against EPA on agricultural stormwater case
In the case, Alt v. EPA, the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia ruled that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot require a West Virginia poultry farm to obtain a Clean Water Act discharge permit for its stormwater. The court found that the stormwater discharge came from the farmyard that surrounds the concentrated animal feeding operation (CAFO) and that the farmyard itself was not a “production area” under the Clean Water Act. In this specific case, the EPA argued, runoff directly threatens the Chesapeake Bay watershed, which includes the District of Columbia, Maryland, Virginia, Delaware, New York and Pennsylvania.
Farm groups across the nation consider this a major victory.
Sources: Environmental Protection Agency, U.S. District Court for the Northern District of West Virginia