West Virginia Highlands Conservancy v. West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection

摘要

West Virginia agency must obtain Clean Water Act national pollutant discharge elimination system permits for its ongoing reclamation efforts at abandoned coal mining sites, because: (I) agency is person under act discharging pollutants into waters of United States from point sources, (2) act contains no exemption from NPDES permit requirements for agencies conducting reclamation efforts, (3) duty under act to obtain permit applies to subsequent operators of discharging sites, (4) agency's role in issuing NPDES permits does not exempt it from act's requirement to obtain permits, and (5) burden of complying with permits does not exempt agency from act's permit requirements.