On April 20, 2017, the U.S. District Court for the District of South Carolina issued a decision concluding that the federal Clean Water Act (CWA) does not apply to claims involving the discharge of pollutants to groundwater that it is hydrologically connected to surface waters.  In Upstate Forever, et al. v. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners, L.P., et al., the district court granted the defendants’ motion to dismiss the plaintiffs’ citizen suit alleging violations of the CWA as a result of a December 2014 leak of petroleum products from defendants’ pipeline in Anderson County, South Carolina. In addition to concluding that… Read more