Supreme Court sides with San Francisco, makes it harder for EPA to police sewage discharges
A split Supreme Court on Tuesday made it harder for environmental regulators to limit water pollution, a San Francisco ruling that sometimes occurs during heavy rains.
By 5-4, the court’s conservative majority ruled Environmental Protection Agency Under the Clean Water Act, its power exceeds the water pollution permit, which contains ambiguous requirements for maintaining water quality.
The decision is the latest decision by conservative judges to contain pollution control efforts.
Judge Samuel Alito wrote for the court that the EPA could set specific restrictions to tell cities and counties what could be lifted. However, the agency lacks the authority to “including “final re-segment” provisions, which puts cities and counties in charge of maintaining the quality of water, in which case the wastewater has been discharged.
“When a permit contains such requirements, a licence that permits each specific requirement to be followed in its permit may face a penalty for damage if the water quality in the receiving waters is below the applicable standards,” he wrote.
A conservative justice Amy Coney Barrett joined the court three liberals. Barrett wrote that emission restrictions still sometimes do not ensure that water quality standards are met.
“In this case, technology-based wastewater restrictions may reduce concerns,” Barrett wrote, adding that “emissions from the components of the sewer system in San Francisco have allegedly resulted in serious violations of water quality standards such as “discoloration, scum,” scum, scum and floating materials, including toilet streams.”
The case created an abnormal alliance of cities in free Northern California, energy companies and business groups.
Former acting general counsel, Kevin Minoli, said the EPA has issued thousands of licenses called narrative licenses over decades.
Minoli said the narrative permit was almost as a backup work in case quantifying what could be discharged still leads to unacceptable water quality.
Minoli said with the new restrictions imposed by the court, “the problem is to replace those restrictions.”
Alito downplayed the impact of the decision and wrote that the agency has the “tools” needed to ensure water quality standards.
To cope with the decision, the Sierra Club, a grassroots environmental organization based in Oakland, California, issued a statement.
The decision “ignores the fundamental reality of how water bodies and water pollution work and may hinder the ability of EPA to implement the Clean Water Act, a cornerstone environmental law that has kept water safe for the past 50 years.” explain.
“Because EPA does not allow for health-based standards when regulating water contamination, everything that may be discharged before issuing a clean water permit makes the permitted process delayed and very expensive,” Narayan said. “The result is likely to be a new system where the public is often subject to unsafe water quality.”
San Francisco City Attorney David Chiu and San Francisco Public Utilities General Manager Dennis Herrera statement The decision “clearly shows that license holders like San Francisco are responsible for their discharge and that the EPA has tools to ensure water quality. However, penalties retain things that holders are outside their control, such as the ultimate water quality of shared water, affect water quality on many other factors.”
