Opinion ID: 206467
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Evidence of Discharge

Text: We next turn to the factual issue on which the district court granted summary judgement in favor of Defendantswhether any evidence in the record shows Defendants discharged stormwater that caused or contributed to water-quality violations. The district court determined that a factual basis was lacking: Plaintiffs failed to present evidence that the standards-exceeding pollutants passed through the Defendants' MS4 outflows at or near the time the exceedances were observed. Nor did Plaintiffs provide any evidence that the mass emissions stations themselves are located at or near a Defendant's outflow. Plaintiffs do represent in their supplemental briefing that their monitoring data reflects sampling conducted at or near Defendants' outflows.... However, the declarations on which Plaintiffs rely do not clearly indicate that the sampling in question was conducted at an outflow (as opposed to in-stream). ... In short, Plaintiffs have failed to follow the Court's instructions and present data which could establish that standards-exceeding pollutants ... passed through Defendants' MS4 outflows at or near the time the exceedances were observed. That the pollutants must have passed through an outflow is key because, as the Court found in the March 2 Order, standards-exceeding pollutants must have passed through a County or District outflow in order to constitute a discharge under the Clean Water Act and the Permit. Plaintiffs have argued throughout this litigation that the measured exceedances in the Watershed Rivers ipso facto establish Permit violations by Defendants. Because these points are designated in the Permit for purposes of assessing compliance, this argument is facially appealing. But the Clean Water Act does not prohibit undisputed exceedances; it prohibits discharges that are not in compliance with the Act (which means in compliance with the NPDES). See 33 U.S.C. § 1311(a); see also Miccosukee Tribe, 541 U.S. at 102, 124 S.Ct. 1537. While it may be undisputed that exceedances have been detected, responsibility for those exceedances requires proof that some entity discharged a pollutant. Indeed, the Permit specifically states that discharges from the MS4 that cause or contribute to the violation of the Water Quality Standards or water quality objectives are prohibited. [D]ischarge of pollutant is defined as any addition of any pollutant to navigable waters from any point source[.] 33 U.S.C. § 1362(12). Under the Clean Water Act, the MS4 is a Point Source. See 33 U.S.C. § 1342(p)(2), 1362(14). Navigable waters is used interchangeably with waters of the United States. See Headwaters, Inc. v. Talent Irrigation Dist., 243 F.3d 526, 532 (9th Cir.2001). Those terms mean, inter alia, [a]ll waters which are currently used, were used in the past, or may be susceptible to use in interstate or foreign commerce, including all waters which are subject to the ebb and flow of the tide[.] 40 C.F.R. § 122.2. The Watershed Rivers are all navigable waters. Thus, the primary factual dispute between the parties is whether the evidence shows any addition of pollutants by Defendants to the Watershed Rivers. Defendants contend that the District does not generate any of the pollutants in the system, but only transports them from other permitted and non-permitted sources. Moreover, Defendants contend that by measuring mass-emissions downstream from where the pollutants entered the sewer system, it is not possible to pinpoint which entity, if any, is responsible for adding them to the rivers. In the words of the district court, there is no evidence that standards-exceeding pollutants... passed through Defendants' MS4 outflows at or near the time the exceedances were observed. Plaintiffs counter that the monitoring stations are downstream from hundreds of miles of storm drains which have generated the pollutants being detected. To Plaintiffs, it is irrelevant which of the thousands of storm drains were the source of polluted stormwateras holders of the Permit, Defendants bear responsibility for the detected exceedances. Resolving this dispute over whether Defendants added pollutants depends heavily on the level of generality at which the facts are viewed. At the broadest level, all sides agree with basic hydrologyupland water becomes polluted as it runs over urbanized land and begins a downhill flow, first through municipal storm drains, then into the MS4 which carries the water (and everything in it) to the Watershed Rivers, which flow into the Pacific Ocean. More narrowly, it is, as Plaintiffs concede, impossible to identify the particular storm drains that had, for instance, some fecal bacteria which contributed to a water-quality violation. Ultimately, each side fails to rebut the other's arguments. Defendants ignore their role as controllers of thousands of miles of MS4 and the stormwater it conveys [7] by demanding that Plaintiffs engage in the Sisyphean task of testing particular storm drains in the County for the source of each pollutant. Likewise, Plaintiffs did not enlighten the district court with sufficient evidence for certain claims and assumed it was obvious to anyone how stormwater makes its way from a parking lot in Pasadena into the MS4, through a mass-emissions station, and then to a Watershed River. Despite shortcomings in each side's arguments, there is evidence in the record showing that polluted stormwater from the MS4 was added to two of the Watershed Rivers: the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River. Because the mass-emissions stations, as the appropriate locations to measure compliance, for these two rivers are located in a section of the MS4 owned and operated by the District, when pollutants were detected, they had not yet exited the point source into navigable waters. As such, there is no question over who controlled the polluted stormwater at the time it was measured or who caused or contributed to the exceedances when that water was again discharged to the rivers in both cases, the District. As a matter of law and fact, the MS4 is distinct from the two navigable rivers; the MS4 is an intra-state man-made constructionnot a naturally occurring Watershed River. See Headwaters, 243 F.3d at 533 (The EPA has interpreted `waters of the United States' to include `intrastate lakes, rivers, streams (including intermittent streams)... the use, degradation, or destruction of which would affect or could affect interstate or foreign commerce' and `tributaries of [those] waters.') (quoting 40 C.F.R. § 122.2(c), (e)). At least some outfalls for the MS4 were downstream from the massemissions stations. See 40 C.F.R. § 122.26(9) (Outfall means a point source... at the point where a municipal separate storm sewer discharges to waters of the United States....). The discharge from a point source occurred when the still-polluted stormwater flowed out of the concrete channels where the Monitoring Stations are located, through an outfall, and into the navigable waterways. We agree with Plaintiffs that the precise location of each outfall is ultimately irrelevant because there is no dispute that MS4 eventually adds storm-water to the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers downstream from the Monitoring Stations. Although the District argues that merely channeling pollutants created by other municipalities or industrial NPDES permittees should not create liability because the District is not an instrument of addition or generation, [8] the Clean Water Act does not distinguish between those who add and those who convey what is added by othersthe Act is indifferent to the originator of water pollution. As Judge Wilkinson of the Fourth Circuit cogently framed it: [The Act] bans `the discharge of any pollutant by any person' regardless of whether that `person' was the root cause or merely the current superintendent of the discharge. Huffman, 625 F.3d at 167 (emphasis added). Point sources include instruments that channel water, such as any pipe, ditch, channel, tunnel, conduit, well, discrete fissure, container, rolling stock, concentrated animal feeding operation, or vessel or other floating craft, from which pollutants are or may be discharged. 33 U.S.C. § 1362(14) (emphasis added). The EPA's regulations further specify that ms4 operators require permits for channeling: Discharge of a pollutant ... includes additions of pollutants into waters of the United States from: surface runoff which is collected or channelled by man; discharges through pipes, sewers, or other conveyances owned by a State [or] municipality. 40 C.F.R. § 122.2 (emphasis added). [M]ost urban runoff is discharged through conveyances such as separate storm sewers or other conveyances which are point sources under the CWA. These discharges are subject to the NPDES program. 55 Fed.Reg. 47,991. Finally, the Supreme Court stated in Miccosukee Tribe that the definition of `discharge of a pollutant' contained in § 1362(12) ... includes within its reach point sources that do not themselves generate pollutants. 541 U.S. at 105, 124 S.Ct. 1537 (emphasis added). Accordingly, the district court erred in stating that Plaintiffs have not provided the Court with the necessary evidence to establish that the Los Angeles River and the San Gabriel River below the mass emissions monitoring stations are bodies of water that are distinct from the MS4 above these monitoring stations. In light of the evidence that the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River mass-emission stations are in concrete portions of the MS4 controlled by the District, it is beyond dispute that the District is discharging pollutants from the MS4 to the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River in violation of the Permit. Thus, Plaintiffs are entitled to summary judgment on Claims 2 and 3. However, we agree with the district court that, as the record is currently constituted, it is not possible to mete out responsibility for exceedances detected in the Santa Clara River and Malibu Creek (Claims 1 and 4). Like the district court, we are unable to identify the relationship between the MS4 and these mass-emissions stations. From the record, it appears that both monitoring stations are located within the rivers themselves. Plaintiffs have not endeavored to provide the Court with a map or cogent explanation of the interworkings or connections of this complicated drainage system. We recognize that both the Santa Clara and Malibu Creek Monitoring Stations are downstream from hundreds or thousands of storm drains and MS4 channels. It is highly likely, but on this record nothing more than assumption, that polluted stormwater exits the MS4 controlled by the District and the County, and flows downstream in these rivers past the massemissions stations. To establish a violation, Plaintiffs were obligated to spell out this process for the district court's consideration and to spotlight how the flow of water from an ms4 contributed to a water-quality exceedance detected at the Monitoring Stations. See, e.g., Nicholas Acoustics & Specialty Co. v. H & M Constr. Co., 695 F.2d 839, 846-47 (5th Cir. 1983) (We wish to emphasize most strongly that it is foolhardy for counsel to rely on a court to find disputed issues of material fact not highlighted by counsel's paperwork; a party that has suffered the consequences of summary judgment below has a definite and specific duty to point out the thwarting facts.... Judges are not ferrets!). Contrary to Plaintiffs' contention, this would not require independent sampling of the District's outfalls. Indeed, simply ruling out the other contributors of stormwater to these two rivers or following up to vague answers given by Defendants' witnesses could have satisfied Plaintiffs' evidentiary obligation. In the alternative, prior to commencing actions like this one, Plaintiffs could heed the district court's sensible observation and, for purposes of their evidentiary burden, sample from at least one outflow that included a standards-exceeding pollutant[.] Finally, for all four Watershed Rivers, the record is silent regarding the path stormwater takes from the unincorporated land controlled by the County to the Monitoring Stations. The district court correctly demanded evidence for the County's liability, which Plaintiffs did not proffer. In sum, Plaintiffs were entitled to summary judgment on Claims 2 and 3 against the District for the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River because (1) the Monitoring Stations for these two rivers are located in a portion of the MS4 owned and operated by the District, (2) these Monitoring Stations detected pollutants in excess of the amount authorized by the NPDES permit, and (3) this polluted water discharged into the Los Angeles River and San Gabriel River. The Plaintiffs, however, have not met their burden on summary judgment for their other claims because they did not provide the district court with evidence that the MS4 controlled by the District discharged pollutants that passed through the Monitoring Stations in the Santa Clara River and Malibu Creek, or that ms4s controlled by the County discharged pollutants that passed through the Monitoring Stations in any of the four rivers in question.