Opinion ID: 411109
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Specific Substantive Provisions

Text: 44 To briefly restate the issue before us, dams can release water into the downstream river which is low in dissolved oxygen, contains dissolved minerals and nutrients, is warm or cold, contains excess sediment, or is supersaturated. The statutory question is whether any or all of these conditions constitute the addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source so as to require EPA to issue NPDES permits for dams under Sec. 402. 45
46 Low dissolved oxygen, cold, and supersaturation do not plainly fall within the statutory list of pollutants in Sec. 502(6), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1362(6)--dredged spoil, solid waste, incinerator residue, sewage, garbage, sewage sludge, munitions, chemical wastes, biological materials, radioactive materials, heat, wrecked or discarded equipment, rock, sand, cellar dirt and industrial, municipal, and agricultural waste discharged into water. 47 These dam-induced changes are water conditions, not substances added to water. Section 502(6), however, primarily lists substances; heat is the only listed water condition. 48 Moreover, the wording of Sec. 506(6) makes us cautious in adding new terms to the definition. Congress used restrictive phrasing--[t]he term 'pollutant' means dredged spoil, [etc.]--rather than the looser phrase includes, used elsewhere in the Act. 49 As a general rule,  '[a] definition which declares what a term means ... excludes any meaning that is not stated.'  Colautti v. Franklin, 439 U.S. 379, 392 n.10, 99 S.Ct. 675, 684 n.10, 58 L.Ed.2d 596 (1979) (quoting C. Sands, Statutes and Statutory Construction Sec. 47.07 (4th ed. Supp.1982) ). 47 The Wildlife Federation argues that supersaturation and changes in temperature and oxygen level are indisputably pollution as that term is defined in Sec. 502(19), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1362(19), and that it would be pointless to recognize dam-induced water changes as pollution without treating these same changes as involving a pollutant. 50 The argument has some superficial appeal. The Supreme Court, however, has ruled that certain radioactive materials are not pollutants even though they undoubtedly emit pollution. Train v. Colorado Public Interest Research Group, Inc., 426 U.S. 1, 96 S.Ct. 1938, 48 L.Ed.2d 434 (1976). Moreover, under usual rules of statutory construction, use of two different terms is presumed to be intentional, see, e.g., Russell v. Law Enforcement Assistance Administration, 637 F.2d 354, 356 (5th Cir.1981), especially when the legislation specially defines both terms. Finally, EPA's policy-oriented explanation for the distinction--that Congress purposely limited the federal NPDES permit program to certain well-recognized pollutants and left control of other water-altering substances or conditions to the states under Sec. 208--is quite plausible. 48 The legislative history, while not entirely consistent with the statutory language, further suggests that the Act does not require EPA to treat dam-induced water conditions as pollutants. Prior law (the Refuse Act of 1899, 33 U.S.C. Sec. 407), had required a permit only for industrial discharges of refuse into navigable waters. The definition of pollutant in Sec. 502(6) was designed to add municipal discharges to the basic formula of the Refuse Act. S.Rep. No. 414, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. 76 (1971) (S.Rep.), reprinted in 2 Congressional Research Service, Environmental Policy Division, 93d Cong., 1st Sess., A Legislative History of the Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972, at 1415, 1494 (Comm.Print 1973) (1972 Leg.Hist.) and in 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3668, 3742. 51 Thus, while Congress did not specifically exclude dams from the NPDES program, it expressed neither specific intent to include them nor general intent to equate pollutant and pollution. Also, the broad term refuse was replaced with a list of specific items so that litigable issues are avoided over the question of whether the addition of a particular material is subject to control requirements. Id. Needless to say, if pollutant was intended to be as all-encompassing as pollution, there would have been no need to fear litigation over what it included, and hence no need for such a definitional list. 52 49 The reasonableness of EPA's distinction between pollutant and pollution is reinforced by the changes made in conference. Both the Senate and the House had used inclusive phrasing--[t]he term 'pollutant' means, but is not limited to, dredged spoil, ..., and industrial, municipal, agricultural, and other waste discharged into water. 53 The conference committee deleted the inclusive phrases but is not limited to and other waste, albeit without explanation. S.Rep. No. 1236 (Conf.Rep.), 92d Cong., 2d Sess. 143-44 (1972), 1972 Leg.Hist. 281, 326-27, U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3776, 3821. 50 And, while Congress did not intend the term pollutant to be all-inclusive, we find, at the same time, strong signals in the legislative history that it also entrusted EPA with at least some discretion over which pollutants and sources of pollutants were to be regulated under the NPDES program. Of course, Congress generally intended that EPA would exercise substantial discretion in interpreting the Act. As the Conference Report states: 51 In the administration of the Act, EPA will be required to establish numerous guidelines, standards and limitations.... [T]he Act provides Congressional guidance to the Administrator in as much detail as could be contrived. Virtually every action required of the Administrator by the Act, however, involves some degree of agency discretion, judgments involving a complex balancing of factors that include technological considerations, economic considerations, and others. 52 Id. at 149, 1972 Leg.Hist. 332, 1972 U.S. Code Cong. & Admin.News at 3826. It also specifically expected EPA to have some power to determine both what is a point source and what is a pollutant. Senator Muskie, the principal sponsor of the Act, stated: 53 Guidance with respect to the identification of point sources and nonpoint sources, especially as related to agriculture, will be provided in regulations and guidelines of the Administrator. 54 117 Cong.Rec. 38,816 (1971), 1972 Leg.Hist. 1299. 54 Similarly, with regard to pollutant, Senator Muskie stated:Again, I do not get into the business of defining or applying these definitions to particular kinds of pollutants. That is an administrative decision to be made by the Administrator. Sometimes a particular kind of matter is a pollutant in one circumstance, and not in another. 55 117 Cong.Rec. 38,838 (1971), 1972 Leg.Hist. 1347. 55 56 Given this focused legislative intent concerning deference to EPA's interpretation of these definitional provisions, we must accept that interpretation unless it is manifestly unreasonable. See Lead Industries Association v. EPA, 208 U.S.App.D.C. 1, 647 F.2d 1130, 1147, cert. denied, 449 U.S. 1042, 101 S.Ct. 621, 66 L.Ed.2d 503 (1980) (where a statute vests an agency with a considerable amount of discretion, its interpretation must be upheld unless plainly unreasonable). In fact, EPA has given the statute a natural reading, both on its face and in light of the legislative history. We will consider in the next section whether, as the district court found, EPA's reading is inconsistent with general congressional purposes; however, after the foregoing analysis, it will take powerful evidence to convince us that EPA's conclusion that low dissolved oxygen, cold, and supersaturation are not pollutants is unreasonable. 56 57
58 The Act does not define what constitutes the addition of a pollutant. The parties agree that water quality problems that occur within a reservoir (e.g., dissolved minerals) are nonpoint pollution, for lack of a point source. The Wildlife Federation argues, however, that the statutorily necessary addition ... from a point source occurs when (1) a dam causes pollutants to enter the reservoir and (2) the polluted water subsequently passes through the dam--the point source--into the formerly unpolluted river below. 57 EPA responds that addition from a point source occurs only if the point source itself physically introduces a pollutant into water from the outside world. In its view, the point or nonpoint character of pollution is established when the pollutant first enters navigable water, and does not change when the polluted water later passes through the dam from one body of navigable water (the reservoir) to another (the downstream river). As for supersaturation, which does not exist in the reservoir, EPA argues that it occurs downstream, after the water is released from the dam. 58 59 In our view, the language of the statute permits either construction. The legislative history does not provide much help either. Throughout its consideration of the Act, Congress' focus was on traditional industrial and municipal wastes; it never considered how to regulate facilities such as dams which indirectly cause pollutants to enter navigable upstream water and then convey these polluted waters downstream. Congress did consider downstream water changes caused by dams such as saltwater intrusion, see Sec. 304(f)(2)(E), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1314(f)(2)(E), but had no occasion to consider whether NPDES permits were desirable for dams because downstream changes are not amenable to the technological controls required for point sources. 60 Although Congress did not expressly address whether EPA should have discretion to define the term addition, we note that it gave the agency reasonable discretion to define two other necessary components of the Sec. 402 permit program--point source and pollutant. On that basis, we consider it likely that Congress would have given EPA similar discretion to define addition had it expected the meaning of the term to be disputed. Therefore, EPA's interpretation must be accepted unless manifestly unreasonable, and we do not find it so. Accord Missouri ex rel. Ashcroft v. Department of the Army, 672 F.2d 1297, 1304 (8th Cir.1982) ([T]he discharge of a pollutant requires an 'addition' of a pollutant from a 'point source' and neither term applie[s] to soil erosion or the oxygen content of the water.). 61
62 The Wildlife Federation also argues that the definitions of pollutant and addition should be read broadly because the NPDES permit program is Congress' preferred method of water pollution control and would have been applied to all sources of pollution had Congress thought that it was technologically feasible to do so. 59 There is indeed some basis in the legislative history for the position that Congress viewed the NPDES program as its most effective weapon against pollution. Prior to 1972, federal water pollution law had required the states, under EPA oversight, to develop water quality standards and then limit industrial and municipal discharges so as to meet those standards. This system proved inadequate. It was costly, slow, and complicated to determine the effluent limits needed to maintain water quality. Many states did not set effluent limits and enforcement was all but nonexistent. 60 The 1972 Act made technology-based effluent limits, rather than water quality standards, the basis of pollution prevention and elimination because they were the best available mechanism to control water pollution. S.Rep. at 8, 1972 Leg.Hist. 1426, 1972 U.S. Cong. & Ad.News at 3675. 61 63 Nonetheless, it does not appear that Congress wanted to apply the NPDES system wherever feasible. Had it wanted to do so, it could easily have chosen suitable language, e.g., all pollution released through a point source. Instead, as we have seen, the NPDES system was limited to addition of pollutants from a point source. 64 The legislative history of the 1977 amendments further bolsters the view that the division of pollution control efforts between discharge permits under Sec. 402 and areawide waste management plans under Sec. 208 was not just a device for separating out pollution sources amenable to NPDES technological controls. Rather, Congress viewed state pollution control programs under Sec. 208 as in part an experiment in the effectiveness of state regulation. See S.Rep. No. 370, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 8-9, 1977 Leg.Hist. 635, 642-43 (1977 S.Rep.) 1977 U.S. Code Cong. & Ad.News, 4326, 4334-35: 65 In 1972, the Congress made a clear and precise distinction between point sources, which would be subject to direct Federal regulation, and nonpoint sources, control of which was specifically reserved to State and local governments through the section 208 process. 66 .... 67 Between requiring regulatory authority for nonpoint sources, or continuing the section 208 experiment, the committee chose the latter course, judging that these matters were appropriately left to the level of government closest to the sources of the problem. 68 The Senate Report also expresses a positive intent to leave certain pollution problems to the states, at least for the time being: 69 Section 208 ... may not be adequate. It may be that the States will be reluctant to develop [adequate] control measures ... and it may be that some time in the future a Federal presence can be justified and afforded. 70 But for the moment, it is both necessary and appropriate to make a distinction as to the kinds of activities that are to be regulated by the Federal Government and the kinds of activities which are to be subject to some measure of local control. 71 Id. at 10, 1977 Leg.Hist. 644, 1977 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News at 4336. Consistent with this view of its intent to give the states a chance to show that they could do the job, we note that Congress chose to exempt irrigation return flows from the NPDES program even though they were amenable to point source control. Clean Water Act of 1977, Sec. 33(c), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1342(l); see Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc. v. Costle, 186 U.S.D.C.App. 147, 568 F.2d 1369, 1372-73 (1977) (discussing prior NPDES permit requirements for irrigation return flows). 72 In short, the admittedly important place of the NPDES permit program in the Clean Water Act does not convince us that EPA's interpretation of its scope, as far as dam-caused pollution is concerned, is unreasonable. 62 73
74 Several other sections of the statute refer specifically to dams. To the very limited extent that these sections are relevant, they support EPA and hence reinforce our conclusion that EPA's position is reasonable. In particular, EPA relies on Sec. 304(f)(2)(F), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1314(f)(2)(F), which requires it to develop: 75 processes, procedures, and methods to control [nonpoint source] pollution resulting from-- 76 .... 77 (F) changes in the movement, flow, or circulation of any navigable waters or ground waters, including changes caused by the construction of dams, levees, channels, causeways, or flow diversion facilities. 78 In its view, this section demonstrates congressional intent that some water quality changes caused by dams be regulated as nonpoint pollution. 63 But even under the Wildlife Federation's reading, downstream bank erosion due to decreased sediment load or variable water releases, saltwater intrusion due to reduced flow, and pollution of the reservoir itself would be nonpoint source pollution. 64 Thus, Congress' mention of dam-induced changes in Sec. 304 as nonpoint source pollution provides only mild support for EPA's position since some dam-caused water quality changes will be treated as nonpoint pollution in any event. 79 Even less relevant are the references to dams in Sec. 404 (dredge and fill permits required for, among other things, construction of new dams) and Sec. 102(b) (use of dams to regulate streamflow). That Congress created a special section to deal with dredge and fill problems caused by dams as well as many other construction activities tells us little about what it would have done about the dam-caused problems at issue here, had it focused on them. Similarly, because it affirmatively recognized one beneficial water quality effect of dams in Sec. 102(b) does not tell us what it would have wanted to do about other, harmful effects of dams.