The Supreme Court narrowed the protections of the Clean Water Act in an opinion Thursday, finding the law only covered wetlands and other bodies of water that directly connect to federal waters like rivers and lakes.
The opinion issued in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency reversed a Ninth Circuit ruling that a pair of Idaho landowners’ property was subject to regulation under the CWA. Justice Samuel A. Alito Jr., wrote for five conservative justices that the law’s protections for “Waters of the United States” only extended to wetlands with a direct surface connection to them, which did not include the Sacketts’ property.
“In sum, we hold that the CWA extends to only those ‘wetlands with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are ‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,’ so that they are ‘indistinguishable’ from those waters,” the opinion said.
