Opinion ID: 3048789
Heading Depth: 5
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Changing the bottom elevation of any

Text: portion of a water of the United States. (2) Examples of such fill material include, but are not limited to: rock, sand, soil, clay, plastics, construction debris, wood chips, overburden from mining[11] or other excavation activities, and materials used to create any structure or infrastructure in the waters of the United States. (3) The term fill material does not include trash or garbage. 33 C.F.R. § 323.2(e) (Corps’ regulation); 40 C.F.R. § 232.2 Mineral Extraction, Specifically Gold Mining, in Alaska” 1-2 (Apr. 14, 1992) (“The tailings behind the dam, however, are a waste product of the mining operation and are not under our jurisdiction according to the 1986 Memorandum of Agreement . . . .”); Letter from Glen E. Justis, U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs 2-3 (June 18, 1991) (“The Corps has neither special expertise [n]or jurisdiction by law to evaluate the impacts of the tailings discharge. . . . The tailings do not meet the Corps’ definition of fill material.”). 11 “Overburden” is generally defined as rock or soil cleared away before mining. See EPA, Terms of Environment, http://www.epa.gov/ OCEPAterms/oterms.html (May 14, 2007). 5982 SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION v. USACE (EPA’s regulation) (emphasis added). The agencies also defined “discharge of fill material” as follows: The term “discharge of fill material” means the addition of fill material into waters of the United States. The term generally includes, without limitation, the following activities: . . . placement of overburden, slurry, or tailings or similar mining-related materials .... 33 C.F.R. § 323.2(f); 40 C.F.R. § 232.2.12 At the same time, however, the agencies made clear that they did not intend to change their long-standing practice, according to which EPA regulates discharges of pollutants for which it has established effluent limitations or standards of performance under the NPDES program.13 [W]e emphasize that today’s rule generally is 12 The amici brief of 14 members of Congress argues persuasively that the adoption of these regulations by the Corps and EPA violates the purposes and plain language of the Clean Water Act by allowing waste material to be dumped into lakes, rivers, and other waters of the United States. SEACC bases its argument on a narrower ground pertaining to this particular mine. Thus, we do not reach the issue of the validity of these regulations. 13 In Kentuckians, the Fourth Circuit recognized the Corps’ prior practice of not regulating discharges subject to effluent limitations under § 404: [W]e conclude that the Corps’ interpretation of “fill material” as used in § 404 of the Clean Water Act to mean all material that displaces water or changes the bottom elevation of a water body except for “waste” — meaning garbage, sewage, and effluent that could be regulated by ongoing effluent limitations as described in § 402 — is a permissible construction of § 404. 317 F.3d at 448. The court also explained the Corps’ prior position that it was not authorized to regulate discharges subject to effluent limitations. Id. at 445. SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION v. USACE 5983 intended to maintain our existing approach to regulating pollutants under either section 402 or 404 of the CWA. Effluent limitation guidelines and new source performance standards (“effluent guidelines”) promulgated under section 304[14] and 306 of the CWA establish limitations and standards for specified wastestreams from industrial categories, and those limitations and standards are incorporated into permits issued under section 402 of the Act. EPA has never sought to regulate fill material under effluent guidelines. Rather, effluent guidelines restrict discharges of pollutants from identified wastestreams based upon the pollutant reduction capabilities of available treatment technologies. Recognizing that some discharges (such as suspended or settleable solids) can have the associated effect, over time, of raising the bottom elevation of a water due to set- tling of waterborne pollutants, we do not consider such pollutants to be “fill material,” and nothing in today’s rule changes that view. Nor does today’s rule change any determination we have made regarding discharges that are subject to an effluent limitation guideline and standards, which will continue to be regulated under section 402 of the CWA. Similarly, this rule does not alter the manner in which water quality standards currently apply under the section 402 or the section 404 programs. 67 Fed. Reg. at 31,135 (emphasis added). Additionally, in their Joint Response to Comments to the proposed rule, the agencies restated this position: Under today’s rule, we will continue, consistent with 14 Sections 304 and 301 are interchangeable in this instance. Section 304 directs EPA in how to determine the degree of effluent reduction attainable under § 301. Citizens Coal Council v. EPA, 447 F.3d 879, 883 (6th Cir. 2006) (en banc) (citing 33 U.S.C. § 1314). 5984 SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION v. USACE our long-standing practice, to rely on the existence of effluent limitation guidelines or standards or a NPDES permit to inform the determination of how a particular discharge is regulated under the Act. If a specific discharge is regulated under Section 402, it would not also be regulated under Section 404, and vice versa. EPA/Corps, Joint Response to Comments 30. In the same document, the agencies clarified that the new rule would not expand the jurisdiction of the Corps or permit previously prohibited discharges: “the suggestion that this rulemaking now provides a legal basis for previously illegal activities is not the case — no discharges that were previously prohibited are now authorized as a result of this rulemaking.” Id. Thus, the agencies clearly intended to exclude discharges subject to effluent limitations or performance standards from the new definition of “fill material.” In fact, when the Corps and EPA first proposed the revised, coordinated definition in 2000, they included an explicit exemption from the definition of “fill material” for discharges subject to effluent limitations or standards of performance. See 65 Fed. Reg. 21,292, 21,299 (Apr. 20, 2000). The stated purpose of the exemption was to maintain the agencies’ “current practice,” which was “consistent with paragraph B.5 of the 1986 Solid Waste MOA.” Id. at 21,297. Although the agencies removed the explicit exemption from the final rule, they did so only because commenters expressed concern that the exception was vague and would create uncertainty regarding whether the reference to effluent guidelines applied prospectively or only to those guidelines already in existence at the time. See 67 Fed. Reg. at 31,135. As such, the agencies still intended to regulate discharges subject to effluent limitations and standards of performance under § 402. The defendants attempt to undermine the clear intent of the agencies by focusing on a single sentence of the preamble in SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION v. USACE 5985 which the agencies stated “mining-related material that has the effect of fill when discharged will be regulated as ‘fill material.’ ” Id. The district court also relied on that one sentence. However, the defendants and the district court give far more weight to that singular statement than it deserves. It is difficult to understand why the agencies would painstakingly explain in the preamble that the new definition would not change their treatment of discharges subject to effluent limitations and standards of performance, only to completely contradict themselves two paragraphs later. The agencies themselves cleared up any potential confusion in their Joint Response to Comments: Today’s final rule clarifies that any material that has the effect of fill is regulated under section 404 and further that the placement of “overburden, slurry, or tailings or similar mining-related materials” is considered a discharge of fill material. Nevertheless, if EPA has previously determined that certain materials are subject to an [effluent limitation guideline] under specific circumstances, then that determination remains valid. EPA/Corps, Joint Response to Comments 12. Thus, the current fill rule only applies to those tailings and other miningrelated materials that are not subject to effluent limitations or standards of performance.15 The agencies could not have been 15 The Fourth Circuit’s holding in Kentuckians is consistent with our conclusion. In Kentuckians, the court addressed the issue of whether the Corps had authority under § 404 to permit valley fills from mountain-top coal mining “when the valley fills serve no purpose other than to dispose of excess overburden from the mining activity.” 317 F.3d at 439. EPA had not promulgated a performance standard for mountain-top coal mining, so neither § 301 nor § 306 was implicated in that case. Id. at 445. Moreover, in that case, the Corps admitted that, under the 2002 definition, “it was authorized to regulate discharges of fill, even for waste, unless the fill amounted to effluent that could be subjected to effluent limitations.” Id. (emphasis added). 5986 SOUTHEAST ALASKA CONSERVATION v. USACE more clear in articulating that this would be their preferred approach.