Opinion ID: 445104
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: claims of trustees and zemansky

Text: 22
23 The Trustees claim that on remand the presiding officer erroneously required the Trustees to bear the risk of nonpersuasion on the issue of the use of recycling as BPT. Since these permits were initially issued, the EPA has promulgated revised regulations clarifying where the burden of persuasion is placed: 24 The permit applicant always bears the burden of persuading the Agency that a permit authorizing pollutants to be discharged should be issued and not denied. This burden does not shift. 25 40 C.F.R. Sec. 124.85(a)(1) (1983). Even if the presiding officer erred by failing to apply this regulation during the 1981 hearings on remand, the Trustees and the EPA now agree that the regulation provides the controlling legal principle. Thus, there is little danger that the principle will be misapplied in the future. This aspect of the Trustees' challenge is moot. See Montgomery Environmental Coalition, 646 F.2d at 583. 26
27 The Trustees contend that the presiding officer erred by finding that use of settling ponds rather than recycling was BPT. The situation has now changed with respect to the statutory requirements. As of July 1, 1984, more stringent technological standards of BAT and BCT govern effluent discharge, Sec. 1311(b)(2)(A) and (E); BPT is no longer the controlling standard. 28 The Trustees concede that the current administrative proceedings to review the 1984 permits will develop an entirely new factual record and will apply a different legal standard. In view of the intervening change in the controlling standard and the corresponding staleness of the evidence, we conclude that the Trustees' assertion that recycling is BPT has become moot. See Montgomery Environmental Coalition, 646 F.2d at 585. 29
30 Under Sec. 1311(b)(1)(C), the EPA must adopt any limitation that has been established under state or federal law, or that is necessary to implement the Act's water quality standards, if the limitation is more stringent than existing limitations. The Trustees charge that despite the EPA's statutory duty and the express instructions of the Administrator's remand order, the presiding officer failed to establish effluent limitations for total suspended solids or for turbidity, arsenic, and mercury. 31 The permits incorporated the State of Alaska's water quality standard for turbidity allowing for an increase of no more than 25 Jackson Turbidity Units 500 feet downstream from the discharge point. The Trustees argue that a water quality standard is not sufficient, and that the Act requires the EPA to establish an end-of-pipe effluent limitation. 32 This issue is not moot. In subsequent permits issued in 1983 and 1984 the EPA has continued to include limitations based on state water quality standards, rather than effluent limitations, not only for turbidity but also for arsenic. In Montgomery Environmental Coalition, 646 F.2d at 580-81, the EPA had adopted the flat position that it was not legally bound to impose certain NPDES permit conditions. The court held that the EPA's categorical legal stance amounted to a continuing and brooding presence, cast[ing] what may well be a substantial adverse effect on the interests of the petitioning parties. Id. (quoting Super Tire Engineering Co. v. McCorkle, 416 U.S. 115, 122, 94 S.Ct. 1694, 1698, 40 L.Ed.2d 1 (1974)). In such circumstances, the fact that the original permit had expired was held to be irrelevant because of the highly reasonable expectation that petitioners will be subjected to the same action again. Montgomery Environmental Coalition, 646 F.2d at 581. 33 Thus, we reach the merits of the Trustees' claims on this issue. The EPA adopts the position that the incorporation of state water quality standards satisfies the need to establish effluent limitations. The Act provides: 34 In order to carry out the objective of this chapter, there shall be achieved ... (C) not later than July 1, 1977, any more stringent limitation, including those necessary to meet water quality standards, treatment standards, or schedules of compliance, established pursuant to any State law or regulations ... or any other Federal law or regulation, or required to implement any applicable water quality standard established pursuant to this chapter. 35 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1311(b)(1)(C). 36 The Act defines effluent limitation as any restriction established by a State or the Administrator on quantities, rates, and concentrations of chemical, physical, biological, and other constituents which are discharged from point sources ... including schedules of compliance. 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1362(11). 37 In EPA v. State Water Resources Control Board, 426 U.S. 200, 96 S.Ct. 2022, 48 L.Ed.2d 578 (1976), the Court discussed the role of effluent limitations in fulfilling the purposes of the Act. The Court observed that the 1972 amendments to the Act were prompted by the inadequacy of previous water quality standards which focused on the tolerable effects rather than the preventable causes of water pollution, id. at 202, 96 S.Ct. at 2023. Under the amendments, a discharger's performance is measured against strict technology-based effluent limitations rather than against limitations based on collective water quality standards. Id. at 204-05, 96 S.Ct. at 2024-25. See S.Rep. No. 98, 92d Cong., 1st Sess. 5, reprinted in 1972 U.S.Code Cong. & Ad.News 3675 (Under this Act the basis of pollution prevention and elimination will be the application of effluent limitations. Water quality will be a measure of program effectiveness and performance, not a means of elimination and enforcement.). See also Bethlehem Steel Corp. v. EPA, 538 F.2d 513, 515 (2d Cir.1976) (In holding that it lacked jurisdiction to review action of EPA in approving state water quality standards, the court observed that although water quality standards and effluent limitations are related, the two are entirely different concepts). Effluent limitations are a means of achieving water quality standards. 38 In United States Steel Corp. v. Train, 556 F.2d 822 (7th Cir.1977), the court reviewed an NPDES permit which included temperature limitations taken directly from state water quality standards. In response to the argument that these limitations were therefore not effluent limitations, the court reasoned that [b]ecause of the convenience of temperature limits, thermal water quality standards do not need to be 'translated' in order to become applicable to an individual discharger as effluent limitations. Id. at 840 n. 27. The situation differs here because the particulate solids at issue may easily be translated into effluent limitations through other units of measurement such as by weight or volume. Thus, we hold that section 1311(b)(1)(C) requires the Administrator to include in placer mining permits whatever effluent limitations it determines are necessary to achieve the state water quality standards. 39 The 1976 permits included no effluent limitations for arsenic and mercury. The information submitted with the permit applications did not indicate that either metal was a substantial factor in waste water. Nonetheless, the Trustees have introduced evidence showing significant increases in arsenic downstream from nine of the ten sites examined and in mercury downstream from one of the ten sites. 40 In the Initial Decision on Remand, the presiding officer directed that the permits be amended to include monitoring requirements for mercury and arsenic for at least one mining season to determine what levels are found when the settleable solids limitations and state turbidity standards are met. However, he required no effluent limitation for arsenic and mercury even at the sites where it had already been shown to be present. In reaching this decision, the presiding officer denied the Trustees an opportunity to present in a public hearing their case for proposed effluent limitations or monitoring requirements for arsenic and mercury, as required by section 1342 and by the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. Secs. 554, 556, and 557. See Marathon Oil Co. v. EPA, 564 F.2d 1253, 1260 (9th Cir.1977). 41 The Trustees assert that this denial of their rights continues to cause them harm in the context of succeeding permits which still fail to restrict effluent limitations on arsenic and mercury discharge and require no monitoring for those pollutants. We find that this argument is meritorious. Thus, we direct the Administrator on remand to conduct a hearing for the purpose of allowing the Trustees to present evidence on effluent limitations for arsenic and mercury and on appropriate monitoring requirements.