A federal appeals court has gutted EPA's rule requiring concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs) to seek discharge permits, leaving the administration and environmentalists with little option but to pursue tough-to-prove enforcement actions against facilities found to have discharged. "They're going to have to figure out how to be Sherlock Holmes," one environmentalist says. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit ruled unanimously March 15 to vacate portions of EPA's 2008 Clean Water Act (CWA) rule requiring such facilities to apply for discharge permits based on a suspicion that they would discharge pollutants.
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