CLF Suit Could Test Supreme Court's CWA Groundwater Permit Ruling

摘要

The Conservation Law Foundation (CLF) has filed a new citizen suit that could help further clarify the Supreme Court's "functional equivalent" test for when pollutants that travel from a point source through groundwater to surface waters require a Clean Water Act (CWA) discharge permit. The environmental group's Feb. 16 suit, CLF v. Town of Barnstable, filed in the U.S. District Court for the District of Massachusetts, argues the town's discharge of partially treated sewage water into sand beds on a wastewater treatment plant's premises violates CWA permit requirements because nitrogen and other pollutants quickly travel a short distance to surface waters. "Defendant's discharge from the Hyannis Facility is the largest individual source of nitrogen polluting the waters of the Lewis Bay Watershed System: Defendant discharges 12,947 kilograms of nitrogen into these waters annually," CLF says in its complaint. The facility discharges the partially treated effluent to the sand beds under a state-law groundwater permit, but CLF argues a CWA permit is required as the discharges to the sand beds are the "functional equivalent" to a direct discharge, as outlined in the Supreme Court's landmark 2020 ruling in County of Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund.