Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-260_jifl.pdf
Page Number: 7

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

3 

Opinion of the Court 

pollutant,” that is, has there been “any addition of any pol-
lutant to navigable waters from any point source? ” 

B 

The  petitioner,  the  County  of  Maui,  operates  a 
wastewater reclamation facility on the island of Maui, Ha-
waii.  The  facility  collects  sewage  from  the  surrounding
area,  partially  treats  it,  and  pumps  the  treated  water
through four wells hundreds of feet underground.  This ef-
fluent, amounting to about 4 million gallons each day, then 
travels a further half mile or so, through groundwater, to
the ocean. 

In 2012, several environmental groups, the respondents
here, brought this citizens’ Clean Water Act lawsuit against 
Maui.  See §505(a), id., at 888.  They claimed that Maui was
“discharg[ing]” a “pollutant” to “navigable waters,” namely,
the Pacific Ocean, without the permit required by the Clean
Water Act.  The District Court, relying in part upon a de-
tailed  study  of  the  discharges,  found  that  a  considerable 
amount of effluent from the wells ended up in the ocean (a
navigable  water).  It  wrote  that,  because  the  “path  to  the 
ocean  is  clearly  ascertainable,”  the  discharge  from  Maui’s
wells  into  the  nearby  groundwater  was  “functionally  one
into navigable water.”  24 F. Supp. 3d 980, 998 (Haw. 2014).
And it granted summary judgment in favor of the environ-
mental groups.  See id., at 1005. 

The Ninth Circuit affirmed the District Court, but it de-
scribed  the  relevant  statutory  standard  somewhat  differ-
ently.  The  appeals  court  wrote  that  a  permit  is  required 
when  “the  pollutants  are  fairly  traceable  from  the  point
source to a navigable water such that the discharge is the
functional equivalent of a discharge into the navigable wa-
ter.”  886 F. 3d 737, 749 (2018) (emphasis added).  The court 
left “for another day the task of determining when, if ever,
the connection between a point source and a navigable wa-
ter is too tenuous to support liability . . . .”  Ibid.