Source: http://openjurist.org/256/f3d/36/united-states-v-massachusetts-water-resources-authority
Timestamp: 2013-05-20 04:43:46
Document Index: 183552284

Matched Legal Cases: ['§ 141', '§ 141', '§ 141', '§ 141', '§ 141', '§ 300', '§ 141', '§ 141', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 4', '§ 78', '§ 825', '§ 1365', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300', '§ 300']

256 F3d 36 United States v. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority | OpenJurist
256 F. 3d 36 - United States v. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority	Home256 f3d 36 united states v. massachusetts water resources authority
256 F3d 36 United States v. Massachusetts Water Resources Authority 256 F.3d 36 (1st Cir. 2001)
UNITED STATES, Plaintiff, Appellant,v.MASSACHUSETTS WATER RESOURCES AUTHORITY; METROPOLITAN DISTRICT COMMISSION, Defendants, Appellees.
On June 29, 1989, pursuant to this statutory command, the EPA promulgated the Surface Water Treatment Rule (SWTR or Rule), 40 C.F.R. §§ 141.70-.73. The SWTR focuses on public systems that draw their water in some measure from above-ground sources. It seeks to reduce the risk of illness from waterborne pathogens to one yearly occurrence per 10,000 consumers of water from covered public systems. Drinking Water; National Primary Drinking Water Regulations; Filtration, Disinfection; Turbidity, Giardia lamblia, Viruses, Legionella, and Heterotrophic Bacteria, 54 Fed. Reg. 27,486, 27,490 (June 29, 1989) (codified at 40 C.F.R. pts. 141 and 142). Specifically, the Rule requires that all public systems achieve a three-log (99.9 percent) reduction in the Giardia lamblia parasite and a four-log (99.99 percent) reduction in viral contamination, 40 C.F.R. § 141.70(a); establishes a mandatory disinfection requirement for all systems, subject to the granting of variances by the EPA, id. § 141.72; specifies the standards according to which all filtration systems must be constructed, id. § 141.73; and sets out eleven "avoidance criteria" for levels of certain waterborne contaminants that all public water systems hoping to forego filtration must satisfy, id. §§ 141.71(a)-(b).2 On December 16, 1998, in response to an additional amendment to the SDWA passed in 1996, see 42 U.S.C. § 300g-1(b)(2)(C) (Supp. 2000), the EPA promulgated the Interim Enhanced Surface Water Treatment Rule (IESWTR), 40 C.F.R. §§ 141.170-.173, which requires that public water systems implement treatment techniques with respect to the protozoan Cryptosporidium larvum, whose presence in public water systems has risen in the past two decades and which has been demonstrated to cause significant health problems, particularly for those individuals with weakened immune systems. This Rule, whose requirements must be met by public water systems by the end of 2001, requires a two-log (99 percent) reduction in Cryptosporidium by all water systems that employ filtration, and an extension of watershed controls to cover Cryptosporidium for all unfiltered water systems. Id. § 141.173(b).
As a practical matter, much of the burden of enforcing the SDWA falls on the shoulders of state environmental authorities, such as the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP). This is so because, under the Act, state agencies that adopt drinking water regulations deemed by the EPA to be at least as stringent as its own may assume primary responsibility for identifying violations of the EPA's regulations and for enforcing the filtration requirement against the violators. Id. § 300g-2(a). The Act provides that within thirty months of the promulgation of the SWTR, those state agencies that participate in SDWA enforcement must identify the water systems that are required to install filtration facilities.6 Id. § 300g-1(b)(7)(C)(iii). Although state authorities are afforded the first opportunity under this system to make formal determinations regarding the need for filtration, the EPA must bring its own enforcement action in the absence of such a state determination, provided the state agency and the violating water system are given thirty days' notice and an opportunity for consultation with the EPA. Id. § 300g-3(a)(1)(B).
B. The MWRA
II. Equitable Discretion under the SDWA
As the United States sees it, the key words in this passage are "compliance" and "comply." Based on their presence, as well as on the Act's command that the EPA delimit circumstances under which filtration is "required," id. § 300g-1(b)(7)(C)(i), the United States contends that, while § 300g-3(b) may not have abrogated courts' equitable powers to specify when ("the time necessary to comply") and how ("the availability of alternative water supplies") a violator is to comply with the filtration requirement, the provision does deprive courts of the authority to allow SDWA violators to remain in permanent noncompliance. In this respect, the United States contends that the case at bar is most akin to Hill, a decision in which the Supreme Court found that the district court did not have the equitable discretion under the Endangered Species Act to decline the issuance of an injunction if it found that a violation of the statute's substantive provisions had occurred. 437 U.S. at 193-95.
If anything, the strongest inference that may be drawn from the SDWA is that Congress did intend for "may" in § 300g-3(b) to track its everyday meaning. As mentioned in Part I, supra, Congress amended the Act in 1986 to enhance the level of enforcement under the SDWA. See 42 U.S.C. § 300g-3(a)(1)(B) (providing that if the responsible state enforcement authority does not commence enforcement action within thirty days of being notified by the EPA of existence of violation, "the Administrator shall issue an [administrative] order . . . or the Administrator shall commence a civil action . . . .") (emphases added); Rodgers, supra, § 4.20A, at 152 ("In making these changes Congress [was] convinced that it [could] control prosecutorial options by replacing 'mays' with 'shalls' in its enforcement instructions."). But in so amending the Act, Congress left untouched the "mays" contained in the Act's neighboring judicial-enforcement provision, thereby making only prosecution of substantive SDWA violations an expressly mandatory undertaking. It presumably did so with the understanding that under the Act, enforcement requires the actions of two entities -- the state enforcement authority or the U.S. Attorney's office, who must sue to require compliance, and the district court, which must issue an injunction -- to bring about a substantive remedy under the Act. "[W]hen the same [provision] uses both 'may' and 'shall,' the normal inference is that each is used in its usual sense -- the one act being permissive, the other mandatory." Anderson v. Yungkau, 329 U.S. 482, 485 (1947); see also Barbieri v. RAJ Acquisition Corp. (In re Barbieri), 199 F.3d 616, 619-20 (2d Cir. 1999) (distinguishing neighboring subsections of same section of Bankruptcy Code based on presence of "may" in one provision and "shall" in the other provision).
For instance, under the judicial-enforcement provision of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934, 15 U.S.C. § 78u(d)(1), the SEC "may, in its discretion, bring an action . . . to enjoin . . . acts or practices" violating the statute's substantive provisions. In SEC v. Frank, 388 F.2d 486, 491 (2d Cir. 1968), Judge Friendly, writing for the panel, found such language not susceptible of the interpretation that equitable discretion had been stripped from the district court: "Such bland language affords no sufficient basis for concluding that Congress meant special weight to be given the Commission's decision to allow its staff to institute suit. If Congress wishes to go further, it should say so in language all can understand." Likewise, in Federal Power Commission v. Arizona Edison Co., 194 F.2d 679, 684-86 (9th Cir. 1952), the Ninth Circuit, reaching an analogous conclusion with respect to identical language in the judicial-enforcement provision of the Federal Power Commission Act, 16 U.S.C. § 825m(a), held that the courts' traditional powers of equity had not been eviscerated by the agency's power to bring suit to require compliance. Another example of this usage, albeit in a slightly different context, appears in the citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act; under this statute, suits may not be instituted by individuals or organizations if the EPA or the appropriate state enforcement authority "has commenced and is diligently pursuing a civil or criminal action . . . to require compliance" with the Act's substantive provisions. 33 U.S.C. § 1365(b)(1)(B) (emphasis added). Despite this reference to "requir[ing] compliance" in the statutory language, the Supreme Court held in Romero-Barcelo that the Clean Water Act does not require the issuance of an injunction in all cases where a statutory violation has been identified. 456 U.S. at 313 (holding that "[t]he grant of jurisdiction to ensure compliance with a statute hardly suggests a duty to do so under any and all circumstances"). These examples demonstrate that a statutory provision that gives an agency the power to litigate "to require compliance," without more, does not necessarily obligate the court asked to rule on such a suit to issue any particular remedy.19
This line of reasoning only is valid as far as it goes -- and it does not go as far as the United States suggests. It is certainly true that, in delegating authority to the EPA to ascertain circumstances in which "filtration . . . is required" of public water systems, 42 U.S.C. § 300g-1(b)(7)(C)(i), Congress entrusted the EPA with the power to make policy judgments with respect to the factors that would make filtration mandatory. It is also true that, as a general matter, those judgments are not to be second-guessed by courts. But policy determinations in statutes and regulations that Congress chooses to have enforced through suits in equity are always subject to courts' equitable discretion -- that is, at least to the extent that Congress has preserved discretion in the statute and has not proscribed, through its expressions of policy, the type of equitable remedy that a court seeks to implement. If Congress has left the door open to a court to exercise equitable discretion respecting enforcement of a statute such as the SDWA, and the court senses that the equities of the case may favor alternative means of exacting compliance with the statute (i.e., other than the issuance of an injunction), the court does not exceed the boundaries of its authority by conducting fact-finding for the purpose of determining how best to wield its discretion in light of the priorities established in the statute. The district court did not hold a trial to revisit the underlying wisdom of the SWTR; rather, it held a trial to ascertain whether, based on both the particular facts of this case and the substantive goals of the Act, it was more appropriate to order filtration or to permit the MWRA to pursue its alternative approach to the extent that it could satisfy the Rule's avoidance criteria and ultimately provide a safer water supply.
Under the SDWA, the term "public water system" encompasses any "system for the provision to the public of piped water for human consumption through pipes or other constructed conveyances, if such system has at least fifteen service connections or regularly serves at least twenty-five individuals." 42 U.S.C. § 300f(4)(A).
Without resort to judicial process, however, the EPA may impose a civil penalty not exceeding $25,000 per day for violations of administrative orders. 42 U.S.C. § 300g-3(g)(3)(A).
In 1996 Congress once again amended the SDWA to permit the EPA to excuse from filtration certain public water systems that draw water from uninhabited, undeveloped watersheds over which the public water system has "consolidated" (i.e., sole) ownership of the surrounding lands. 42 U.S.C. § 300g-1(b)(7)(C)(v). The MWRA, however, does not qualify to take advantage of the exception because it does not have consolidated ownership of the land surrounding its reservoirs.
The United States asserts that by creating a filtration exemption under the SDWA in 1996 for water systems with uninhabited and undeveloped watersheds in consolidated control, 42 U.S.C. § 300g-1(b)(7)(C)(v), Congress demonstrated its belief that such an amendment was needed to circumvent the mandatory command of the Act's filtration requirement. We disagree. This provision merely authorizes state enforcement agencies, who would otherwise be obliged to bring an enforcement action for avoidance-criteria violations, see id. § 300g-3(a)(1)(B) (requiring the EPA to bring suit for substantive SDWA violation if state enforcement agency fails timely to do so), to permit compliance with the Act by means other than filtration for certain types of water systems. The amendment does not touch upon the power of the court to issue -- or not issue -- an injunction.
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