On April 23, 2020, the United States Supreme Court issued a significant decision regarding when National Pollution Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits are needed for “point source” discharges under the Clean Water Act. The Clean Water Act forbids “any addition” of any pollutant from “any point source” to “navigable waters” without an appropriate permit from the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).» Read more

When the Land Recycling Standards and Remediation Act, commonly known as “Act 2,” was enacted in 1995, the Pennsylvania General Assembly declared that:

• incentives should be put in place to encourage responsible persons to voluntarily develop and implement cleanup plans without the need for adversarial enforcement actions by the Department of Environmental Protection (the “Department”), “which frequently only serve to delay cleanups and increase their cost” and
• cleanup plans “should be based on the actual risk that contamination on the site may pose to public health and the environment, taking into account its current and future use…”

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Perhaps a common tendency is to think that an environmental problem is most likely to arise in the course of manufacturing.  But given the substantial volume of environmental laws that have been enacted over the last several decades, potential for an environmental problem to surface at other places, such as hospitals, doctors’ offices,  shopping complexes, and residential dwellings, may be greater than ever.  » Read more