USEPA's Underground Injection Control Rule Upheld in Florida

摘要

The Eleventh Circuit Court of Appeals recently held that the US Environmental Protection Agency's (USEPA's) revised underground injection control (UIC) regulations for Class I municipal disposal wells in Florida are an appropriate exercise of administrative rulemaking pursuant to the power granted to the agency under the Safe Drinking Water Act (SDWA). Miami-Dade County, several cities, a waste-water treatment facility, and the Sierra Club challenged the new rule on the grounds that the USEPA failed to follow proper notice and comment procedures, that the rule was inconsistent with the language of the SDWA, and that the rule was arbitrary and capricious under the Administrative Procedures Act (APA). The new UIC rule, which took effect Dec. 22, 2005, offers municipal disposal well owners and operators two options for handling injected effluent: