Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/22pdf/21-454_4g15.pdf
Page Number: 9.0

Cite as:  598 U. S. ____ (2023) 

3 

Opinion of the Court 

hurdles, such as requiring the consent of the State where 
the pollution originated.  See 62 Stat. 1156–1157.  Despite
repeated  amendments  over  the  next  two  decades,  few  ac-
tions were brought under this framework.5 

Congress  eventually  replaced  this  scheme  in  1972  with
the  CWA.  See  86  Stat.  816.  The  Act  prohibits  “the  dis-
charge  of  any  pollutant”  into  “navigable  waters.”  33 
U. S. C. §§1311(a), 1362(12)(A). It broadly defines the term 
“ ‘pollutant’ ” to include not only contaminants like “chemi-
cal  wastes,”  but  also  more  mundane  materials  like  “rock, 
sand,” and “cellar dirt.”  §1362(6).

The CWA is a potent weapon.  It imposes what have been
described as “crushing” consequences “even for inadvertent
violations.”  Army  Corps  of  Engineers  v.  Hawkes  Co.,  578 
U. S. 590, 602 (2016) (Kennedy, J., concurring).  Property
owners who negligently discharge “pollutants” into covered 
waters may face severe criminal penalties including impris-
onment.  §1319(c).  These  penalties  increase  for  knowing 
violations.  Ibid.  On the civil side, the CWA imposes over
$60,000 in fines per day for each violation.  See Note follow-
ing 28 U. S. C. §2461; 33 U. S. C. §1319(d); 88 Fed. Reg. 989
(2023) (to be codified in 40 CFR §19.4).  And due to the Act’s 
5-year statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. §2462, and expan-
sive interpretations of the term “violation,” these civil pen-
alties can be nearly as crushing as their criminal counter-
parts, see, e.g., Borden Ranch Partnership v. United States 
Army  Corps  of  Engineers,  261  F. 3d  810,  813,  818  (CA9
2001)  (upholding  Agency  decision  to  count  each  of  348 
passes of a plow by a farmer through “jurisdictional” soil on 
his farm as a separate violation), aff ’d by an equally divided 
Court, 537 U. S. 99 (2002) (per curiam).

The  Environmental  Protection  Agency  (EPA)  and  the 

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5 See Hearings on Activities of the Federal Water Pollution Control Ad-
ministration before the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the 
Senate  Committee  on  Public  Works,  90th  Cong.,  1st  Sess.,  674  (1967)
(reporting only one abatement suit between 1948 and 1967).