Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/19pdf/18-260_jifl.pdf
Page Number: 38

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

5 

ALITO, J., dissenting 

conveyance  . . .  from  which  pollutants  are  or  may  be  dis-
charged.”  §1362(14).    The  Act  includes  a  non-exhaustive 
list of conveyances that fall within this definition, and in-
cluded on that list are such things as “pipe[s],” “ditch[es],”
“channel[s],” and “well[s].”  Ibid. 

Putting all these statutory terms together, the rule can 
be stated as follows: A permit is required when a pollutant 
is “add[ed]” to navigable waters “from” a “point source.”  In 
this  case,  the  parties  and  the  EPA  agree  that  most  of 
the elements of this rule are met.  Specifically, they agree
that: The effluent emitted by the wells is a “pollutant”; this
effluent reaches navigable waters (the Pacific Ocean); and 
the  wells  are  “point  source[s].”    The  disputed  question  is
whether the emission of effluent from those wells qualifies
as a “discharge,” that is, the addition of a pollutant “from” 
a point source.  §1362(12) (emphasis added).

There  are  two  possible  interpretations  of  this  phrase. 
The first is that pollutants are added to navigable waters
from a point source whenever they originally came from the 
point  source.    The  second  is  that  pollutants  are  added  to 
navigable waters only if they were discharged from a point 
source directly into navigable waters. 

Dissatisfied with those options, the Court tries to find a 
third, but its interpretation is very hard to fit into the stat-
utory  text.    Under  the  Court’s  interpretation,  it  appears 
that  a  pollutant  that  leaves  a  point  source  and  heads  to-
ward navigable waters via some non-point source (such as 
by flowing over the ground or by means of groundwater) is
“from” the point source for some portion of its journey, but 
once  it  has  travelled  a  certain  distance  or  once  a  certain 
amount of time has elapsed, it is no longer “from” the point 
source and is instead “from” a non-point source.

This is an implausible reading of the statute.  The Court 
has  many  inventive  examples  of  the  different  meanings
that can be conveyed by the simple statement that A comes
from B, but one of the Court’s examples—the traveler who