The case of County of Maui, Hawaii v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund questioned whether the Clean WaterAct (CWA) “requires a permit when pollutants originate from a point source but are conveyed to navigable waters by a nonpoint source,” in this case, groundwater. The County of Maui operates the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility in West Maui. The facility collects sewage from the surrounding area, partially treats it, and pumps the treated water through four wells hundreds of feet underground. About 4 million gallons of this effluent each day travels a half mile through groundwater to the Pacific Ocean.
In 2012, several environmental groups sued the County of Maui, claiming that it was discharging a pollutant to the Pacific Ocean without the permit required by the CWA. The District Court granted summary judgement in favor of the environmental groups, ruling that because the “path to the ocean is clearly ascertainable,” the discharge from Maui’s wells into the nearby groundwater was “functionally one into navigable water.” The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals upheld the ruling, but differed in its interpretation of the CWA, writing that “the pollutants are fairly traceable from the point source to a navigable water such that the discharge is the functional equivalent of a discharge into the navigable water.”
The U.S. Supreme Court took issue with the Ninth Circuit’s “fairly traceable” approach, writing that its apparent breadth is inconsistent with the context of the CWA. The Court vacated the Ninth Circuit’s judgment and remanded the case for further proceedings consistent with its opinion that “the statutory provisions at issue require a permit if the addition of the pollutants through groundwater is the functional equivalent of a direct discharge from the point source into navigable waters.” However, the Court recognized that the time and distance before the pollutant reaches the navigable water are clearly an issue and will be important factors in subsequent cases.
The full text of the ruling can be found here.
