Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-260_jifl.pdf
Page Number: 43.0

10 

COUNTY OF MAUI v. HAWAII WILDLIFE FUND 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

That a permit is required in this situation is important 
because the Clean Water Act’s definition of a “point source” 
is  very  broad,  and  as  a  result,  many  discharges  onto  the 
surface  of  land  are  likely  to  be  covered.  As  noted,  “point
source[s]”  include  “ditch[es]”  and  “channel[s],”  as  well  as 
“any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance . . . from 
which  pollutants  . . .  may  be  discharged.”    §1362(14).
Therefore  if  water  discharged  on  the  surface  of  the  land
finds  or  creates  a  passage  leading  to  navigable  waters,  a 
permit  may  be  required  if  the  course  that  the  discharge 
takes is (1) a “conveyance” that is (2) “discernible” and (3)
“confined.” 

Those  three  requirements  are  rather  easily  satisfied. 
When  a  liquid  flows  over  the  surface  of  land  to  navigable 
waters, the surface is a conveyance, i.e., a “means of carry-
ing or transporting something” from one place to another.
Webster’s  Third  New  International  Dictionary  499  (1971) 
(Webster’s Third); Random House Dictionary of the English 
Language  320  (1967)  (Random  House).6   This  conveyance
would be “discernible,” i.e., capable of being seen.  Webster’s 
Third 644; Random House 409.  And it would be “confined,” 

—————— 
Water Act “does not forbid the ‘addition of any pollutant directly to nav-
igable waters from any point source.’ ”  547 U. S., at 743.  As noted, Jus-
tice Scalia’s opinion is open to the possibility that a permit is required if
point source A discharges into point source B, and point source B then 
discharges  into  covered  waters.    Thus,  his  opinion  apparently  regards 
that situation as involving an indirect discharge.  I would describe that 
discharge as direct because point source B discharges directly into cov-
ered waters, but the difference is purely semantic. 

6 As we have said, the Act’s point-source “definition makes plain that a
point source need not be the original source of the pollutant; it need only
convey the pollutant to ‘navigable waters,’ which are, in turn, defined as
‘the waters of the United States.’ ”  South Fla. Water Management Dist. 
v. Miccosukee Tribe, 541 U. S. 95, 105 (2004).  The label is a bit of a mis-
nomer:  Although  labeled  “point  sources,”  “[t]ellingly,  the  examples  . . . 
listed  by  the  Act  include  pipes,  ditches,  tunnels,  and  conduits,  objects 
that do not themselves generate pollutants but merely transport them.” 
Ibid. (citing §1362(14)).