Federal courts have rejected separate efforts by environmentalists to define coal-loading facilities and chemically-treated utility poles as "point sources" that require Clean Water Act (CWA) permits - rulings which could limit the impact of an earlier case regulating pesticide spraying that industry feared could subject other unregulated sources, such as power plants, farms and fertilizer applications, to regulation. In an April 3 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit dismissed a suit that sought to require discharge permits for utility poles because "the poles are not 'discernible, confined and discrete conveyance[s]'" that channel and control stormwater.
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