Opinion ID: 2814626
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Definition and Development of TMDLs, 1972–

Text: 2000 This deadline, it turns out, was overly optimistic, as both states and the EPA have been slow in establishing TMDLs. See Oliver A. Houck, TMDLs, Are We There Yet?: The Long Road Toward Water Quality–Based Regulation under the Clean Water Act, 27 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. L. Inst.) 10,391, 10,392–93 (1997). The initial blame cannot be laid on the states because the statute explicitly requires “the Administrator” of the EPA to identify the pollutants to which the TMDL requirement would apply. 33 U.S.C. § 1313(d)(1)(C). In 1975 the EPA issued a regulation to define “total maximum daily load,” but even then “the Agency still had not identified those pollutants that would be 20 subject to TMDL development.” Dianne K. Conway, TMDL Litigation: So Now What?, 17 Va. Envtl. L.J. 83, 98 (1997). It did so in 1978 and required states to submit TMDLs by June 1979. The EPA’s regulations define “total maximum daily load” as the sum of “waste load allocations” and “load allocations.” 40 C.F.R. § 130.2(i). Also by regulatory definition, waste load allocations are pollutant loads that come from point sources; load allocations come from nonpoint sources. 40 C.F.R. § 130.2(g) & (h).3 The EPA applies these allocations to any pollutant that brings a body of water below an acceptable standard of cleanliness. See 43 Fed. Reg. 60,662 (Dec. 28, 1978) (identifying “all pollutants” as suitable for TMDL development). Once the EPA had laid out the required contents of TMDLs, it and the states remained tardy in establishing them. As a result, a wave of citizen-suits in the 1980s led to a consensus that a state’s failure to submit a TMDL should be deemed a “constructive submission” that no TMDL is needed, triggering the EPA’s duty to accept that conclusion or promulgate its own TMDL. Kingman Park Civic Ass’n v. EPA, 84 F. Supp. 2d 1, 5 (D.D.C. 1999) (collecting cases). Even these successes did not spur immediate action, as courts initially would not follow the “constructive submission” theory “in cases brought against states which engaged in some level of TMDL activity, no matter how minute.” Conway, TMDL Litigation, 17 Va. Envtl. L.J. at 95. In the mid-1990s, nearly a quarter century past the Clean Water Act’s “deadline,” courts became frustrated with 3 In the initial regulation defining TMDLs, the terms were different, but the EPA still required allocation between point and nonpoint sources. 40 Fed. Reg. 55,346 (Nov. 28, 1975). 21 the prevailing “wait-and-see” approach and directed states and the EPA to develop TMDLs with more dispatch. See Sierra Club v. Hankinson, 939 F. Supp. 865 (N.D. Ga. 1996), 939 F. Supp. 872 (N.D. Ga. 1996); Idaho Sportsmen’s Coalition v. Browner, 951 F. Supp. 962 (W.D. Wash. 1996). Following the success of these cases, “citizen-plaintiffs, imbued with the ecosystem consciousness, launched a tidal wave of lawsuits to force the EPA and the states to implement the TMDLs process.” Michael M. Wenig, How “Total” Are “Total Maximum Daily Loads”?—Legal Issues Regarding the Scope of Watershed-Based Pollution Control Under the Clean Water Act, 12 Tul. Envtl. L.J. 87, 94 (1998). The lawsuits of the 1990s were followed by the actual drafting of thousands of TMDLs, which the EPA has described as “the technical backbone” of its approach to cleaning the Nation’s waters. EPA Office of Water, Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL) Program Draft TMDL Program Implementation Strategy § 1.2 (1996). TMDLs are now thorough “informational tools that allow the states to proceed from the identification of waters requiring additional planning to the required plans.” Pronsolino v. Nastri, 291 F.3d 1123, 1129 (9th Cir. 2002). TMDLs are not selfexecuting, but they serve as the cornerstones for pollutionreduction plans that do create enforceable rights and obligations.4 4 The parties debate what precisely TMDLs are. Our understanding of them as informational tools is supported by every case and piece of scholarship to consider them as well as the language of the Chesapeake Bay TMDL itself. See City of Arcadia v. EPA, 411 F.3d 1103, 1105 (9th Cir. 2005); Sierra Club v. Meiburg, 296 F.3d 1021, 1025 (11th Cir. 2002) (“Each TMDL serves as the goal for the level of that pollutant 22