Virginia Holds the Line on Wetlands Protection

Virginia Lawyer’s December issue focuses on environmental law, and Woods Rogers Principals John Byrum and Dan Summerlin contributed a column discussing the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling in Sackett v. EPA, which narrowed the scope of wetlands subject to the Clean Water Act. As a result, only wetlands indistinguishable from the Waters of the United States (WOUS) – essentially those adjacent to and which have a “continuous surface connection” to traditional navigable waters or WOUS – are protected.

John and Dan discuss the case’s journey to the U.S. Supreme Court and its impact, likely to result in fewer wetlands across the country being subject to the Clean Water Act.

“In Virginia, however, the decision will have little – if any – effect on the permitting of wetlands impacts, although it may restrain EPA’s ability to order the preparation of a costly and time-consuming environmental impact statement on a project previously determined to impact federal wetlands and, thus, subject to the National Environmental Policy Act,” the authors point out. “Nevertheless, in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett (pun again intended), Virginia practitioners would be well-served to remember that the tide of wetlands regulation in the Commonwealth has not changed.”

You may read John and Dan’s article in the December issue of Virginia Lawyer, available online here.