Opinion ID: 3009961
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Post-Complaint Discharge Violations

Text: 13 The district court did not indicate why it grouped postnotice/pre-complaint violations with the pre-notice violations rather than with the post-complaint violations. Under the rule we establish here, however, that distinction is not significant. Finding that the post-complaint discharge violations included in the plaintiffs' list were a continuation of the type of activity alleged in the notice letter and finding no legal requirement that Hercules first be notified by plaintiffs of their intention to sue upon these violations, the district court held that these violations survived defendant's summary judgment motion. For the most part, we agree with the district court. We hold that as long as a post-complaint discharge violation is of the same type as a violation included in the notice letter (same parameter, same outfall), no new 60-day notice letter is necessary to include these violations in the suit. In so holding, we do not in effect distinguish between pre-complaint violations and post-complaint violations. Hercules disagrees, arguing that recipients of the notice letter may be more likely to act (i.e., the government may initiate enforcement action; the permit holder may attempt to remedy the violation) if a citizen is required to file a new notice for post-complaint violations. While it is true that the recipients may be more likely to take action as the number of violations increases, we do not find that this justifies a requirement that a new notice must be given for post-complaint violations before commencing a suit which will include these violations. Rather, we find that the recipients of the notice are already on notice of violations of the same type, whether past or continuing. As recipients of the permittee's DMRs, the federal and state enforcement agencies have the ability to review the permittee's compliance. The federal and state enforcement agencies are on notice of continuing or intermittent violations of the same type because they are reported to them in the DMRs. Likewise, the permit holder is on notice of continuing or intermittent violations, given the fact that the permit holder is responsible for filing the DMRs. The district court denied Hercules' summary judgment motion as to all seventeen post-complaint discharge violations. A review of these seventeen discharge violations reveals that all but one involved the same type of violations as those noticed in plaintiffs' 60-day notice letter. In other words, sixteen of the seventeen post-complaint discharge violations involved the same parameter and the same outfall as discharge violations included in the notice letter. We will affirm the district court's decision as to these sixteen post-complaint discharge violations. As for the seventeenth violation, item 112 on plaintiffs' final list, involving the parameter of total dissolved solids, we will remand this violation to the district court for a determination whether, under the standard outlined above, this violation was sufficiently related to the noticed violations for Hercules to be able to identify it from the notice letter. We have found implicit support for this conclusion regarding post-complaint violations in the Supreme Court's decision in Gwaltney. There, the Court held that federal courts do not have jurisdiction over a citizen suit for wholly past violations. 484 U.S. at 64. Rather, jurisdiction exists when the citizen-plaintiffs make a good-faith allegation of continuous or intermittent violation. Id. In reaching this decision, the Supreme Court noted that the harm sought to be addressed by the citizen suit lies in the present or the future, not in the past. Id. at 59. Gwaltney requires that for jurisdiction to attach, a citizen must make a good-faith allegation of a continuous or intermittent violation by the defendant at the time the complaint is filed. Because a citizen must delay filing suit for at least 60 days after notice has been sent, it is foreseeable that a complaint will include allegations of more recent violations in an effort to establish continuous or intermittent violations. We recognize that the 60-day notice provision in the Act and the holding in Gwaltney represent two separate jurisdictional requirements for bringing a citizen suit. United States' Br. as Amicus Curiae at 17. The Act requires that citizens provide a 60-day notice of intent to file suit. Gwaltney requires that a citizen's complaint contain a good-faith allegation of continuous or intermittent violation. The dispute here involves the first jurisdictional prerequisite -- the adequacy of the notice letter. Nevertheless, the basis for the Supreme Court's decision in Gwaltney is helpful to our analysis. Continuing or intermittent violations of the same type are necessary to create jurisdiction of the citizen suit. They are perforce related to the noticed violations. For this reason, they should be easily identifiable by the notice recipient and, therefore, do not need to be noticed in a new 60-day letter. C. Monitoring, Reporting and Recordkeeping Violations Finding that the plaintiffs' 60-day notice letter did not notify Hercules, EPA, or the State of plaintiffs' intent to sue for alleged monitoring, reporting or recordkeeping violations, the district court granted Hercules' motion for summary judgment as to all of these alleged violations. We will reverse this holding. As we set out in Part III, supra, we conclude that, when a parameter violation has been noticed, subsequently discovered, directly related violations of discharge limitations or of monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping requirements for that same parameter at that outfall for that same period may be included in the citizen suit. Monitoring, reporting and recordkeeping requirements are conditions of a permit. When plaintiffs noticed the discharge violations, an investigation by Hercules, EPA, or the State of those excess discharges should uncover related violations of monitoring, reporting or recordkeeping involved in tracking those pollutant parameters.14 Support for our conclusion can be found in the legislative history of the citizen suit provision which makes clear that notice serves the important functions of allowing government agencies to take responsibility for enforcing environmental regulations and giving the alleged violator an opportunity to bring itself into complete compliance. The concept of complete compliance should consist of the cessation 14 The close interrelationship of monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping with discharge limitations has been also been noted by the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit in Sierra Club v. Simkins Industry, Inc., 847 F.2d 1109, 1115 (4th Cir. 1988), cert. denied, 491 U.S. 904 (1992): [Defendant] was bound by the reporting and records retention requirements of the NPDES permit that are central to adequate administration and enforcement of limits on substantive discharges under the Clean Water Act. Unless a permit holder monitors as required by the permit, it will be difficult if not impossible for state and federal officials charged with enforcement of the Clean Water Act to know whether or not the permit holder is discharging effluents in excess of the permit's maximum levels. of the offending discharge, with on-going discharges being monitored and recorded in accordance with the permit provisions. All these functions interact to ensure the permit holder's compliance with the permit conditions. The proper performance of each function is required under the permit provisions and a violation of any one may subject the permit holder to a penalty. The burden on the citizen, however, is to provide sufficient information of a violation, such as an excessive discharge, so that the permit holder and the agency can identify it. If investigation of that discharge by the agency or the permit holder uncovers directly related monitoring, reporting, or recordkeeping violations, complete compliance should incorporate the correction of all such interconnected violations. If the agency or the permit holder fails to achieve complete compliance, the citizen should be able in the citizen suit to seek complete compliance, eliminating all directly related violations, without the burden of further notice. Correction of an excessive discharge without correction of faulty monitoring of that parameter is not complete compliance. Correction of faulty monitoring without correction of incomplete reporting of that parameter is not complete compliance. If, however, we were to interpret the Act in the manner proposed by Hercules, with each of these functions, monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping, being subject to separate notice prior to that violation being included in a suit, we might find the permit holder claiming complete compliance when only one aspect of these interrelated violations had been corrected. We conclude that this latter result is not what Congress intended by complete compliance. We will reverse the district court's grant of summary judgment to Hercules on the monitoring, reporting, and recordkeeping violations, and we will remand that portion of the case to the district court to determine which of these violations are directly related to the discharge violations in suit and which are not. Those that are not directly related should be dismissed unless, in the interim, plaintiffs move to amend their complaint to include them in this action or move to consolidate this action with the subsequent action plaintiffs filed on June 11, 1993.15