This article discusses two legal disputes currently making their way through federal courts that address the question of whether congress intended the pollutant discharge permit requirements of the Clean Water Act (CWA) to apply to engineered conveyances of raw waters by drinking water suppliers. If the ruling is affirmative, the drinking water suppliers would be negatively impacted by the outcome.
Central to the dispute is whether
Congress, as the US government has
argued, intended the CWA to consider the
navigable US waters it aims to restore to
be a single body of water that can be
polluted only by the initial "addition"
from a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES)-regulated point-source
discharge into those waters. If so,
transferring any amounts within that
collective water body necessarily cannot
amount to new additions of pollutants
subject again to NPDES permits. Of
particular concern to water utilities is the
fact that in both cases, courts have
distinguished between intrabasin and
interbasin transfers in considering the
applicability of NPDES permit
requirements, finding that NPDES
requirements can apply to interbasin
transfers involving the discharge of water
from one basin into a separate one.
| Edition : | Vol. 96 - No. 9 |
| File Size : | 1
file
, 120 KB |
| Note : | This product is unavailable in Ukraine, Russia, Belarus |
| Number of Pages : | 11 |
| Published : | 09/01/2004 |
