CWA's Permit Shield Spans SMRCA

On March 30 in the case of Southern Appalachian Mountain Stewards v. Red River Coal Co. Inc., the Fourth Circuit upheld a district court's dismissal of a citizen suit to enforce alleged violations of the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) where the surface coal mine's discharges were covered by a permit issued under the Clean Water Act (CWA) and SMCRA.

Certain non-profit groups alleged a mine operator had violated the SMCRA, CWA and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act by discharging pollutants without a permit from certain underdrains at a now-inactive mine in Virginia. The underdrains were associated with sedimentation ponds and had been identified as outfalls in an earlier permit for the mine. In a later permit renewal, those outfalls were removed after the Division of Mined Land Reclamation (DMLR) within Virginia's Department of Mines, Minerals and Energy authorized the removal of those sedimentation ponds following reclamation. The