Company: ASC
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form Type: 20-F
Source: 0001558370-25-002500
Chunk: 89

Company: Ardmore Shipping Corp
Filing Date: 2025-03-07
Form: 20-F
Item: Item 4
Chunk 89
---
 and imposes strict liability in the form of penalties for any unauthorized discharges. The CWA also imposes substantial liability for the costs of removal, remediation and damages and complements the remedies available under OPA and CERCLA. In 2015, the EPA expanded the definition of “waters of the United States” (“ WOTUS”), thereby expanding federal authority under the CWA. Following litigation on the revised WOTUS rule, in December 2018, the EPA and Department of the Army proposed a revised, limited definition of WOTUS.

Table of Contents

In 2019 and 2020, the agencies repealed the prior WOTUS Rule and promulgated the Navigable Waters Protection Rule (“ NWPR”) which significantly reduced the scope and oversight of EPA and the Department of the Army in traditionally non-navigable waterways. On August 30, 2021, a federal district court in Arizona vacated the NWPR and directed the agencies to replace the rule with the pre-2015 definition. In January 2023, the revised WOTUS rule was codified in place of the vacated NWPR. On May 25, 2023, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case Sackett v. EPAthat only wetlands and permanent bodies of water with a "continuous surface connection" to "traditional interstate navigable waters" are covered by the CWA, further narrowing the application of the WOTUS rule. On August 2023, the EPA and the Department of Army issued the final WOTUS rule, effective on September 8, 2023, that largely reinstated the pre-2015 definition and applied the Sackettruling. The scope of what constitutes U. S. waters for purposes of the regulations is subject to ongoing regulatory and judicial refinement.

The EPA and the USCG have also enacted rules relating to ballast water discharge, compliance with which requires the installation of equipment on our vessels to treat ballast water before it is discharged or the implementation of other port facility disposal arrangements or procedures at potentially substantial costs, and/or otherwise restrict our vessels from entering U. S. Waters. The EPA will regulate these ballast water discharges and other discharges incidental to the normal operation of certain vessels within United States waters pursuant to the Vessel Incidental Discharge Act (“ VIDA”), which was signed into law on December 4, 2018 and replaced the 2013 Vessel General Permit (“ VGP”) program (which authorizes dis