The Nickel Report

The U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit in July issued a long-awaited decision in the case Cooling Water Intake Structure Coalition v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), upholding the EPA’s 2014 Rule establishing requirements pursuant to Clean Water Act (CWA) section 316(b) for cooling water intake structures (CWIS) at existing facilities. The court also upheld the biological opinion (BO) and incidental take statement (ITS) issued by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (the Services) on the 2014 Rule.

The Second Circuit’s decision upholding the rule offers EPA a key victory and provides larger steam-electric power plants and manufacturing facilities more certainty regarding regulatory requirements they must satisfy to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under the CWA.

Click here to view the entire article, originally published in the October 2018 edition of POWER Magazine. © 2018 POWER Magazine. All rights reserved.