Opinion ID: 3033744
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: fifra

Text: Because we have held that the antimycin applied to the Cherry Creek drainage during the Cherry Creek Project is not a chemical waste, and thus not a pollutant for the purposes of the CWA, we do not address Hagener’s argument that he was not required to obtain a permit because he was in compliance with the requirements of FIFRA.3 We do note, however, that this argument is explicitly foreclosed by Headwaters. See Headwaters, 243 F.3d at 531-32. 3 Nor do we address Hagener’s contention that his pesticide dispersal is exempted from the NPDES permit requirement because the department “applied for and received a short-term exemption from water quality standards from the Montana Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).” 12684 FAIRHURST v. HAGENER The district court expended considerable effort attempting to “give effect to each” of the two statutes in question here, the CWA and FIFRA, citing Headwaters’ statement that “[t]he CWA and FIFRA have different, although complementary, purposes.” Headwaters, 243 F.3d at 531. However, Headwaters explicitly held that “registration and labeling . . . under FIFRA does not preclude the need for a permit under the CWA.” Id. at 532. On the contrary, Headwaters noted that “[e]ven [a] cursory review of the statutes reveals that a FIFRA label and a NPDES permit serve different purposes”: FIFRA establishes a nationally uniform labeling system to regulate pesticide use, but does not establish a system for granting permits for individual applications of herbicides. The CWA establishes national effluent standards to regulate the discharge of all pollutants into the waters of the United States, but also establishes a permit program that allows, under certain circumstances, individual discharges. FIFRA’s labels are the same nationwide, and so the statute does not and cannot consider local environmental conditions. By contrast, the NPDES program under the CWA does just that. . . . The NPDES per- mit requirement under the CWA thus provides the local monitoring that FIFRA does not. Id. at 531. As Headwaters explained, FIFRA is a labeling statute that informs the user of a pesticide how to safely use it. FIFRA regulates solely through its registration requirement, and its prohibition against the sale, distribution, and professional use of unregistered pesticides. 7 U.S.C. §§ 136a(a), 136j(a)(1). The statutory scheme puts the onus on manufacturers and distributors to draft and secure approval of the FIFRA label before placing their products on the market. There is no statutory enforcement mechanism governing usage of FIFRA products according to the label. The CWA, by contrast, reguFAIRHURST v. HAGENER 12685 lates the amount and type of pollutants dispersed into the waters of the United States. The NPDES requirement allows the EPA to consider “local environmental conditions,” and issue permits for “individual discharges.” Headwaters, 243 F.3d at 531. Headwaters accordingly held that a person who disperses a “pollutant” as defined by 33 U.S.C. § 1362(6) must secure a NPDES permit, regardless of whether or not the pollutant is dispersed according to instructions on the FIFRA label. Headwaters is not disturbed by our holding today; here we address dispersal of a pesticide that is not a chemical waste and thus not a pollutant.