AWWA JAW64476

This article discusses how water supply interests opposed to applying Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permit requirements to routine water transfers have failed to convince the Supreme Court to overturn a lower court ruling that ordered just such a permit, one that New York City is now striving to comply with. The February 26 decision by the high court to deny the city's writ of certiorari lets stand a ruling by the Second Circuit appeals court that required the city to obtain a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit for a decades-old water transfer operation in its Catskill River watershed. New York City, backed by AWWA and many other water supply interests across the country, had petitioned the court last November to overturn the ruling.