The U.S. Supreme Court has granted certiorari
on a critical question affecting the scope of the Clean Water Act
(CWA): whether releases of pollutants require National Pollutant
Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits when they originate from a
point source, but are conveyed to surface waters through a non-point
source. The Court will hear the case, County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, No. 18-260, next fall, during October Term 2019. The justices will review a Ninth Circuit decision holding
that releases need not be conveyed directly by a point source to
jurisdictional surface waters to require a NPDES permit. The case
concerns the County of Maui’s operation of a wastewater reclamation
facility that disposed of fully treated wastewater into a set of four
injection wells. The Ninth Circuit held that the County’s operation of
its injection wells, which caused pollutants to reach the ocean via
groundwater, required an NPDES permit because the pollutants were fairly
traceable back to point sources—the wells. The Court rejected the
County’s argument that a NPDES permit is only required when a point
source directlydelivers pollutants to a surface water.The Ninth Circuit was one of three Courts of Appeals to weigh in on this
issue in 2018. The Fourth Circuit joined the Ninth by holding that
releases from a pipeline reaching navigable waters via soil and
groundwater required NPDES permits. In a pair of decisions,
the Sixth Circuit created a circuit split by holding that a NPDES
permit is required only when a point source is the actual conveyance
that delivers pollutants to jurisdictional waters...MORE
Issues of concern to people who live in the west: property rights, water rights, endangered species, livestock grazing, energy production, wilderness and western agriculture. Plus a few items on western history, western literature and the sport of rodeo... Frank DuBois served as the NM Secretary of Agriculture from 1988 to 2003. DuBois is a former legislative assistant to a U.S. Senator, a Deputy Assistant Secretary of Interior, and is the founder of the DuBois Rodeo Scholarship.
Saturday, March 02, 2019
Supreme Court to Decide Whether “Indirect” Discharges Require NPDES Permits
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