Long Saga of Defining Federally Protected Waters Continues With Trump Administration Redefinition of WOTUS

There has been multiple blog posts over the history of this site tracking the long and arduous processing of defining federally protected waters under the Clean Water Act.  The U.S. Supreme Court has taken up the issue on multiple occasions, perhaps most significantly in Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006) where Justice Kennedy created the “significant nexus” test for determining whether streams and/or wetlands were protected under the Clean Water Act.  The plurality decision in Rapanos along with Justice Kennedy’s Significant Nexus Test federally protect any waters that: Plurality Test– are relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water, including those deemed traditionally navigable waterways (i.e. “traditional jurisdictional water”); and Significant Nexus Test– those waters that alone or in combination with other similarly situated waters in the region, significantly affects…

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