State of North Carolina v. Hudson

The City of Virginia Beach, Virginia, needed additional water to meet its residents’ needs. Virginia Beach was located in the James River water basin, but it sought permission from the Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) (defendant) to build a pipeline to pump in water from Lake Gaston in the Roanoke River Basin. The Corps granted the permits necessary for the requested interbasin-transfer pipeline project, allowing Virginia Beach to pump up to 60 million gallons per day from the lake. The Roanoke River Basin covered parts of Virginia and North Carolina. The State of North Carolina, the Roanoke River Basin Association, and several Virginia and North Carolina counties (collectively, the RRB users) (plaintiffs) sued Colonel Ronald Hudson, the Corps, and others (defendants) in federal district court, challenging the issuance of the permits. The RRB users were concerned about the loss of water in their own basin and the fact that pulling this volume of water from the lake could sometimes cause additional pollution to the remaining water. The court ordered the Corps to determine two items and report back: (1) whether an environmental-impact statement (EIS) was necessary to determine the project’s impact on the area’s striped bass and (2) the extent of Virginia Beach’s need for additional water. The Corps collected and analyzed additional data. For the striped-bass concerns, the Corps determined that overfishing was the primary cause of the current issues and that the project would likely have a minimal impact on the population. Still, the Corps added a permit condition that Virginia Beach not pull too much water from the lake during the striped bass’s spawning season. The Corps also determined that Virginia Beach truly needed the proposed additional 60 million gallons of water per day. The Corps provided these additional findings to the district court. The RRB users objected that the Corps had not adequately considered some factors in making each of its two findings. The court then prepared its final ruling.