Supreme Court Decides to Punt on Stormwater

I've waited a little while to comment on the Supreme Court ruling issued last week. It's a bit of a bear to wade through, even if one has plodded through these things before.

All in all, there were a lot of procedural questions answered, and few answers to the real meat of the problem. The first part of the ruling had to do with applicability, and if the Water Resources Board correctly decided if the CLF could raise these issues in the first place. They ruled that they could. The next item was regarding whether the state-level permitting program was a substitute for the federal NPDES permit the CLF was aiming for. The court said no. Finally, instead of judging the merits of the ANR's arguements, they asked them to go back and further consider the arguments of the CLF.

Looks like this issue is not done yet. Surprise, surprise...

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