S. Cal. Alliance of Publicly Owned Treatment Works v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency

297 F. Supp. 3d 1060
CourtDistrict Court, E.D. California
DecidedMarch 17, 2018
DocketNo. 2:16–cv–02960–MCE–DB
StatusPublished
Cited by1 cases

This text of 297 F. Supp. 3d 1060 (S. Cal. Alliance of Publicly Owned Treatment Works v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, E.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
S. Cal. Alliance of Publicly Owned Treatment Works v. U.S. Envtl. Prot. Agency, 297 F. Supp. 3d 1060 (E.D. Cal. 2018).

Opinion

MORRISON C. ENGLAND, JR., UNITED STATES DISTRICT JUDGE

By way of the instant action, Plaintiffs Southern California Alliance of Publicly Owned Treatment Works ("SCAP"), the Central Valley Clean Water Association, the National Association of Clean Water *1063Agencies, and the Bay Area Clean Water Agencies (collectively "Plaintiffs") seek declaratory and injunctive relief against Defendants United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), as well as the EPA's Acting Regional Administrator for Region IX, Defendant Alexis Strauss. See First Amended Complaint ("FAC"), ECF No. 18.1 According to Plaintiffs, Defendants are impermissibly allowing and/or requiring the use of unpromulgated statistical or other procedures for testing toxicity, including what is known as the Test of Significant Toxicity ("TST"), when issuing permits related to the treatment and release of wastewater. Presently before the Court is Defendants' Motion to Dismiss (ECF No. 20), which, for the following reasons is GRANTED with leave to amend.2

BACKGROUND3

Plaintiffs are organizations whose members treat and recycle wastewater. Pursuant to the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq. ("CWA"), Plaintiffs' members must obtain National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System ("NPDES") permits in order to release treated water into the environment. These permits are issued by the California Regional Water Quality Control Boards, the State Water Resources Control Board ("State Water Board"), and sometimes the EPA. It is the EPA, however, that promulgates formal test methods for determining whether discharged water is deemed "toxic."

The NPDES permits contain monitoring requirements that must be conducted according to test procedures approved under 40 C.F.R. pt. 136. As is relevant here, the test procedures employed include whole effluent toxicity ("WET") test methods, which measure the biological effects (survival, growth and/or reproduction) on aquatic organisms exposed to environmental samples. In WET testing, the final result is not based on a single measurement, but is the product of a series of replicated measurements on a range of at least five effluent concentrations compared to a control sample. Those replicated measurements can be assessed through a number of distinct statistical procedures, the outcome of which are referred to as "endpoints." The endpoints are expressed as percent of the effluent, rather than as "Pass/Fail" or "unitless."

In 2002, the EPA promulgated a number of WET test methods for use in monitoring compliance with NPDES permit limitations ("2002 Rule"). The 2002 Rule does not expressly mention or authorize the TST statistical procedure. Nor does it mention or authorize, among other things, either an alternative hypothesis presuming the water tested is toxic, unitless expressions of toxicity, or reliance on information from two tested concentrations as opposed to six (of both effluent and control).

Subsequently, in 2010, the EPA published a guidance document regarding the TST ("2010 TST Guidance")-which provided guidance regarding the use of a new potential statistical method of analyzing WET test data for the NPDES program. The TST relies on an alternative hypothesis presuming toxicity and includes Pass/Fail endpoints. The 2010 TST Guidance was not promulgated through formal notice-and-comment rulemaking, expressly confirms that it is not "a permit or a regulation itself" and makes clear that:

*1064The document does not and cannot impose any legally binding requirements on EPA, states, NPDES permittees, or laboratories conducting or using WET testing for permittees (or for states in evaluating ambient water quality). EPA could revise this document without public notice to reflect changes in EPA policy and guidance.

The EPA later amended the 2002 Rule's WET test methods and procedures in 2012, but still did not expressly incorporate or authorize the use of the TST. The agency also proposed modifications to 40 C.F.R. pt. 136 in 2015, but still did not include reference to the TST.

According to Plaintiffs, the EPA nonetheless began to require use of the TST in various permits in the meantime. For example, in July 2012, the EPA, along with the Regional Water Quality Control Board Santa Ana Region, issued NPDES Permit No. CA0110604 to the Orange County Sanitation District. This permit required the use of the TST and stated, "The reported results shall include: determination of 'Pass' or 'Fail' and 'Percent Effect' following the Test of Significant Toxicity hypothesis testing approach in [the 2010 TST Guidance]."

Notably, while the EPA had been urging the State of California to utilize the TST for years, regulated dischargers objected based on concerns regarding high false positive error rates and because the TST approach had not been formally promulgated and publicly vetted. In light of those objections, the State Water Board requested pursuant to 40 C.F.R. pts. 136.4 and 136.5, approval of an Alternate Test Procedure ("ATP") that would permit use of the TST statistical method in conjunction with a test design incorporating only two samples in lieu of the five-concentration WET test procedure. On March 17, 2014, the EPA approved the two-concentration TST design as a limited use ATP for NPDES permits issued in California.

On June 25, 2014, Plaintiffs filed suit against Defendants EPA and Jared Blumenfeld, then Regional Administrator of EPA Region IX, alleging that those defendants had illegally and improperly approved the State Water Board's request to use a newly formulated methodology as an ATP. See So. Cal. Alliance of Publicly Owned Treatment Works v. EPA, Case No. 2:14-cv-01513-MCE-DB ("SCAP I"). Plaintiffs filed that action seeking to overturn the ATP approval and to obtain a permanent injunction preventing the EPA from mandating use of the two-concentration TST. Id., First Am. Compl., ECF No. 15, Prayer for Relief ¶ E.

On February 11, 2015, however, just before Defendants' Reply to its Cross-Motion for Summary Judgment was due, the EPA withdrew its ATP approval of the two-concentration TST testing method "effective immediately." Because of that withdrawal, the Court determined the case to be moot on May 15, 2015, granted Defendants' Motion for Summary Judgment, denied Plaintiffs' own motion and entered judgment in favor of Defendants.4 Id., Memorandum and Order, ECF No. 51.

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Cite This Page — Counsel Stack

Bluebook (online)
297 F. Supp. 3d 1060, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/s-cal-alliance-of-publicly-owned-treatment-works-v-us-envtl-prot-caed-2018.