Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-260_jifl.pdf
Page Number: 13

Cite as:  590 U. S. ____ (2020) 

9 

Opinion of the Court 

pollution discharges from point sources that reached navi-
gable  waters  only  after  traveling  through  groundwater.
See, e.g., United States Steel Corp. v. Train, 556 F. 2d 822, 
832 (CA7 1977) (permit for “deep waste-injection well” on
the shore of navigable waters).  But, in doing so, EPA fol-
lowed a narrower interpretation than that of the Ninth Cir-
cuit.  See, e.g., In re Bethlehem Steel Corp., 2 E. A. D. 715, 
718 (EAB 1989) (Act’s permitting requirement applies only
to injection wells “that inject into ground water with a phys-
ically  and  temporally  direct  hydrologic  connection  to  sur-
face water”).  EPA has opposed applying the Act’s permit-
ting  requirements  to  discharges  that  reach  groundwater 
only after lengthy periods.  See McClellan Ecological Seep-
age Situation (MESS) v. Cheney, 763 F. Supp. 431, 437 (ED 
Cal. 1989) (United States argued that permitting provisions
do not apply when it would take “literally dozens, and per-
haps hundreds, of years for any pollutants” to reach navi-
gable waters); Greater Yellowstone Coalition v. Larson, 641 
F. Supp. 2d 1120, 1139 (Idaho 2009) (same in respect to in-
stances where it would take “between 60 and 420 years” for 
pollutants to travel “one to four miles” through groundwa-
ter before reaching navigable waters).  Indeed, in this very
case (prior to its recent Interpretive Statement, see infra, 
at 12–13), EPA asked the Ninth Circuit to apply a more lim-
ited  “direct  hydrological  connection”  test.    See  Brief  for 
United States as Amicus Curiae in No. 15–17447 (CA9), pp. 
13–20.  The Ninth Circuit did not accept this suggestion. 

We do not defer here to EPA’s interpretation of the stat-
Indeed,  EPA  itself  has 
ute  embodied  in  this  practice. 
changed its mind about the meaning of the statutory provi-
sion.  See infra, at 12–14.  But this history, by showing that 
a comparatively narrow view of the statute is administra-
tively workable, offers some additional support for the view 
that Congress did not intend as broad a delegation of regu-
latory authority as the Ninth Circuit test would allow. 

As we have said, the specific meaning of the word “from”