The
US supreme court has weakened rules on the discharge of raw sewage into water supplies in a 5-4 ruling that undermines the 1972 Clean Water Act.
The CWA is the principal law governing pollution control and water quality of the nation’s waterways.
The Republican super majority court ruled on Tuesday that the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) cannot employ generic, water body-focused pollution discharge limits to Clean Water Act permit holders, and must provide specific limitations to pollution permittees.
The ruling is a win for
San Francisco, which challenged nonspecific, or “narrative,” wastewater permits that the EPA issues to protect the quality of surface water sources like rivers and streams relied upon for drinking water.
In a 5-4 ruling written by Justice Samuel Alito, the court blocked the EPA from issuing permits that make a permittee responsible for surface water quality, or “end result” permits – a new term coined by the court.
“The agency has adequate tools to obtain needed information from permittees without resorting to end-result requirements,” wrote Justice Samuel Alito, who was joined by Chief Justice John Roberts and Justices Clarence Thomas and Brett Kavanaugh, along with Justice Neil Gorsuch, who joined part of the majority opinion.
The EPA issued San Francisco a permit allowing it to discharge pollutants from its combined sewer system into the Pacific Ocean. The permit’s conditions include prohibitions on discharges that contribute to a violation of applicable water quality standards. The permit included generic prohibitions on the impacts to water quality, as part of the EPA’s efforts to halt San Francisco’s releases of raw sewage into the Pacific Ocean during rainstorms.
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