Opinion ID: 4116429
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ʺAdditionʺ

Text: EPAʹs interpretation also requires us to twist the meaning of the word ʺaddition.ʺ Because the word ʺadditionʺ is not defined in the Act, we consider its common meaning. See S.D. Warren Co. v. Me. Bd. of Environ. Prot., 547 U.S. 370, 376 (2006) (in considering the definition of ʺdischargeʺ in 33 U.S.C. § 1362(12), noting that where a word is ʺneither defined in the statute nor a term of art, we are left to construe it ʹin accordance with its ordinary or natural meaningʹʺ (citing FDIC v. Meyer, 510 U.S. 471, 476 (1994))); see also Perrin v. United States, 444 U.S. 37, 42 (1979) (words should be interpreted according to their ʺordinary, contemporary, common meaningʺ). 9 The ordinary meaning of ʺadditionʺ is ʺthe result of adding: anything added: increase, augmentation.ʺ Websterʹs Third New International Dictionary of the English Language Unabridged 24 (1968); see also Websterʹs New World Dictionary of the American Language 16 (2d College ed. 1970 and 1972) (ʺa joining of a thing to another thingʺ). Transferring water containing pollutants from a polluted water body to a clean water body is ʺaddingʺ something to the latter; there is an ʺadditionʺ ‐‐ an increase in the number of pollutants in the second water body. In this context, ʺadditionʺ means adding a pollutant to ʺnavigable watersʺ when that pollutant would not otherwise have been in those ʺnavigable waters.ʺ Words should be given their ʺcontextually appropriate ordinary meaning,ʺ Antonin Scalia & Bryan A. Garner, Reading Law: The Interpretation of Legal Texts 70 (2012), and the context here is a statute intended to eliminate water pollution discharges. See Catskill I, 273 F.3d at 486. That context makes clear that the word ʺadditionʺ encompasses an increase in pollution caused by an interbasin transfer of water. The plain words of the statute thus make clear that Congress did not intend to except water transfers from §§ 1311 and 1362 of the Act. 10