The U.S. Supreme Court will test how flexible the EPA and states can be in regulating water pollution under the Clean Water Act when it hears oral argument in City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 16, 2024. This case asks the court to decide whether federal regulators can issue permits that are effectively broad orders not to violate water quality standards, or instead may only specify the concentrations of individual pollutants that permit holders can release into water bodies.
My research focuses on water issues, including the Clean Water Act. This case involves both federal and state authority to issuing permits, and it will be interesting to see where the court focuses. While justices have been willing to limit the EPA’s authority under the act, they traditionally have allowed states broad authority to protect water quality. Thus, while some fear that this case is yet another occasion for the court to limit the EPA’s authority, California’s involvement may have exactly the opposite effect.
Standards for treating sewage
The 1972 Clean Water Act prohibits any “discharge of a pollutant” without a permit into water bodies such as rivers, lakes and bays that are subject to federal regulation. San Francisco has a combined sewage treatment plant and stormwater control system, the Oceanside plant, which discharges treated sewage and stormwater into the Pacific Ocean through eight pipes, or “outfalls.”
The U.S. Supreme Court will test how flexible the EPA and states can be in regulating water pollution under the Clean Water Act when it hears oral argument in City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency on Oct. 16, 2024. This case asks the court to decide whether federal regulators can issue permits that are effectively broad orders not to violate water quality standards, or instead may only specify the concentrations of individual pollutants that permit holders can release into water bodies.
My research focuses on water issues, including the Clean Water Act. This case involves both federal and state authority to issuing permits, and it will be interesting to see where the court focuses. While justices have been willing to limit the EPA’s authority under the act, they traditionally have allowed states broad authority to protect water quality. Thus, while some fear that this case is yet another occasion for the court to limit the EPA’s authority, California’s involvement may have exactly the opposite effect.
Standards for treating sewage
The 1972 Clean Water Act prohibits any “discharge of a pollutant” without a permit into water bodies such as rivers, lakes and bays that are subject to federal regulation. San Francisco has a combined sewage treatment plant and stormwater control system, the Oceanside plant, which discharges treated sewage and stormwater into the Pacific Ocean through eight pipes, or “outfalls.”
San Francisco’s Oceanside water treatment plant is built into a hollowed-out hill in the southwest corner of the city and discharges to the Pacific Ocean.Pi.1415926535/Wikimedia, CC BY-SA
The California State Water Resources Control Board is in charge of seven outfalls that release treated water close to shore, in state waters. But the facility’s main pipe discharges in federal waters more than 3 miles out to sea, so it is regulated by the EPA.
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