California wheat farmer John Duarte has agreed to pay $330,000 in fines and to undertake mitigation on his farm for alleged Clean Water Act violations, according to a consent decree filed in a federal court in California on Tuesday.   Read more

Both the EPA and Corps have direction from the executive order to define “navigable waters.”   Read more

The Environmental Protection Agency and the Department of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers jointly released a new rule late last week that recodifies the definition of Waters of the United States.   Read more

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has yet to decide whether to grant a request by a number of Democratic senators to extend by 90 days the public comment period on a proposed rollback of the waters of the United States.   Read more

Update – Degradates of Metolachlor/S-Metolachlor (preemergent herbicides for weed control) in the Ground Water of the State of California have “… not polluted and do not threaten to pollute the ground water of the state …” according to a determination made by the California Department of Pesticide Regulation (DPR) which[…]

American Farm Bureau President Zippy Duvall sent a letter to USDA Secretary Sonny Perdue last Friday stating: “The Duarte prosecution has been a poster child for the disregard of the statutory farming exemptions by the U.S. EPA and Army Corps of Engineers over the past eight years.”   Read more

Update – U.S. Streams and Wetlands – Definition of Waters of the United States (WOTUS) – The EPA and the Army Corps of Engineers have published in the July 27, 2017 their previously announced Proposed Rule to “… initiate the first step in a comprehensive, two-step process intended to review[…]