Downstream water quality standards and upstream discharges under the Clean Water Act.

摘要

The purpose of this paper is to examine the jurisdictional issues raised under the Clean Water Act when a downstream jurisdiction is adversely affected by an upstream discharge outside the downstream jurisdiction boundaries. This examination was done by using a case study involving Isleta Pueblo, the first tribe to get Treatment as State status under the 1987 Amendments to the Clean Water Act The hypothesis is that the Federal Government, through the Environmental Protection Agency, has the ultimate control over discharge permits issued by the states despite the Clean Water Act investment of water quality authority in the states. This, along with the EPA policy that Reservations are cohesive units regardless of land ownership, limits the sovereignty of the states. This tribal case study may be extrapolated to apply to downstream states and other tribes qualifying as states to write standards under the Clean Water Act.