Opinion ID: 411109
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Addition of a Pollutant from a Point Source

Text: 58 The Act does not define what constitutes the addition of a pollutant. The parties agree that water quality problems that occur within a reservoir (e.g., dissolved minerals) are nonpoint pollution, for lack of a point source. The Wildlife Federation argues, however, that the statutorily necessary addition ... from a point source occurs when (1) a dam causes pollutants to enter the reservoir and (2) the polluted water subsequently passes through the dam--the point source--into the formerly unpolluted river below. 57 EPA responds that addition from a point source occurs only if the point source itself physically introduces a pollutant into water from the outside world. In its view, the point or nonpoint character of pollution is established when the pollutant first enters navigable water, and does not change when the polluted water later passes through the dam from one body of navigable water (the reservoir) to another (the downstream river). As for supersaturation, which does not exist in the reservoir, EPA argues that it occurs downstream, after the water is released from the dam. 58 59 In our view, the language of the statute permits either construction. The legislative history does not provide much help either. Throughout its consideration of the Act, Congress' focus was on traditional industrial and municipal wastes; it never considered how to regulate facilities such as dams which indirectly cause pollutants to enter navigable upstream water and then convey these polluted waters downstream. Congress did consider downstream water changes caused by dams such as saltwater intrusion, see Sec. 304(f)(2)(E), 33 U.S.C. Sec. 1314(f)(2)(E), but had no occasion to consider whether NPDES permits were desirable for dams because downstream changes are not amenable to the technological controls required for point sources. 60 Although Congress did not expressly address whether EPA should have discretion to define the term addition, we note that it gave the agency reasonable discretion to define two other necessary components of the Sec. 402 permit program--point source and pollutant. On that basis, we consider it likely that Congress would have given EPA similar discretion to define addition had it expected the meaning of the term to be disputed. Therefore, EPA's interpretation must be accepted unless manifestly unreasonable, and we do not find it so. Accord Missouri ex rel. Ashcroft v. Department of the Army, 672 F.2d 1297, 1304 (8th Cir.1982) ([T]he discharge of a pollutant requires an 'addition' of a pollutant from a 'point source' and neither term applie[s] to soil erosion or the oxygen content of the water.). 61