Cases decided by federal courts in Illinois and the Seventh Circuit have held that groundwater does not implicate the CWA, even if there exists a hydrological connection between groundwater and navigable waters. In Vill. of Oconomowoc Lake v. Dayton Hudson Corp., 24 F.3d 962, 965 (7th Cir. 1994), the Seventh Circuit opined that “we are confident that the statute Congress enacted excludes some waters, and groundwaters are a logical candidate.” In a more recent case involving seeps from unlined coal ash pits at a retired coal-fired power plant, which allegedly migrated through ...