Court Opinion

ID: 9497531
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 16:53:31.667715+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:58:15.113222
License: Public Domain

MARTIN, J., delivered the opinion of the court, in which MOORE, J., joined. KENNEDY, J. (pp. 547-50), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.
OPINION
BOYCE F. MARTIN, JR., Circuit Judge.
Pursuant to the citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365, American Canoe Association and Sierra Club filed a complaint on both their own behalf and their members’ behalf alleging that the defendants violated the terms of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued to the City of Louisa Water & Sewer Commission and, in so doing, also violated the Act. The district court dismissed the complaint pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b)(1) for lack of standing. For the reasons that *539follow, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
I.
A. Statutory Background
In 1972, Congress enacted the Clean Water Act with the stated objective of “restor[ing] and maintain[ing] the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters.” 33 U.S.C. § 1251(a). In order to achieve this laudable goal, “the Act prohibits ‘the discharge of any pollutant by any person’ unless done in compliance with some provision of the Act.” S. Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist. v. Miccosukee Tribe, 541 U.S. 95, -, 124 S.Ct. 1537, 1541, 158 L.Ed.2d 264 (2004) (quoting 33 U.S.C. § 1311(a)). Thus, the Act authorizes the issuance of National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permits — commonly referred to as “NPDES permits”— which “place limits on the type and quantity of pollutants that can be released into the Nation’s waters.” Id. Additionally, permit-holders are generally required both to monitor their effluent discharges and to report these results. See 33 U.S.C. § 1318(a) (noting that monitoring and reporting requirements may be imposed when necessary to fulfill the objectives of the Act). If monitoring and reporting requirements are imposed, the Act requires that the information collected be available to the public unless disclosure would expose a trade secret. 33 U.S.C. § 1318(b).
“Congress enlisted the help of the public in attaining [the Act’s] goal by authorizing citizens to bring suits against those who violated the Act.” Pub. Interest Res. Group of New Jersey, Inc. v. Magnesium Elektron, Inc., 123 F.3d 111, 114 (3d Cir.1997). “Citizen suits are merely intended to supplement, not supplant, enforcement by state and federal government agencies.” Ailor v. City of Maynardville, Tenn., 368 F.3d 587, 591 (6th Cir.2004). Noncompliance with a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit constitutes a violation of the Act, such that the citizen-suit provisions are triggered. Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Envtl. Servs. Inc., 528 U.S. 167, 174, 120 S.Ct. 693, 145 L.Ed.2d 610 (2000).
B. Factual Background
On May 21, 2001, American Canoe and Sierra Club, which are national, not-for-profit organizations dedicated to the protection of the environment, filed a complaint against the City of Louisa Water & Sewer Commission and the Louisa Water Treatment Plant alleging violations of the Clean Water Act. On August 17, the plaintiffs amended their complaint to add the City of Louisa as a defendant. This opinion will collectively refer to these entities as the “defendants” unless further explanation is necessary. The complaint alleged that the defendants failed to comply with the terms of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued by the Kentucky Department for Environmental Protection to the City of Louisa Water & Sewer Commission, which authorized the discharge of a specified level of effluents into the Levisa Fork of the Big Sandy River and imposed monitoring and reporting requirements.
American Canoe sued on behalf of its members alleging that their “health, economic, recreational, aesthetic and environmental interests” are adversely affected by the defendants’ discharge, monitoring, and reporting violations. Additionally, American Canoe sued on its own behalf alleging that the defendants’ monitoring and reporting violations adversely affected its organizational interests. In support of its allegations, American Canoe provided the *540affidavit of David Jenkins, the Director of Conservation and Public Policy for American Canoe, which stated that American Canoe and its members’ interests were harmed by the defendants’ monitoring and reporting violations.
Sierra Club made similar allegations, but substantiated them with the affidavit of Daniel Hurst Kash, a resident of Ash-land, Kentucky and member of Sierra Club since 1975. Kash alleged that he had recreated in the Big Sandy River near Louisa in the past and would like to do so in the future, but maintained that he refuses to recreate there currently because of the pollution. The Sierra Club also provided the affidavit of Lane E. Boldman, the Chair of its Cumberland Chapter, stating that the interests of Sierra Club were adversely affected by the defendants’ monitoring and reporting violations.
The defendants filed a motion to dismiss arguing that the plaintiffs lacked standing. The district court granted the motion on June 11, 2002, holding that the plaintiffs lacked standing because none of its members had standing to sue in their own right. Thereafter, the plaintiffs filed a motion for reconsideration pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e), which the district court denied on July 25. This timely appeal followed.
II.
This Court reviews a district court’s dismissal of a complaint for lack of standing as it reviews other dismissals pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 12(b): de novo. Jones v. City of Lakeland, Tenn., 224 F.3d 518, 520 (6th Cir.2000). Thus, this Court must accept as true all material allegations contained in the complaint and liberally construe them in favor of the complaining party. Kardules v. City of Columbus, 95 F.3d 1335, 1346 (6th Cir.1996); Warth v. Seldin, 422 U.S. 490, 501, 95 S.Ct. 2197, 45 L.Ed.2d 343 (1975).
A. Representational Standing
Plaintiff Sierra Club argues that it has standing to sue as the representative of its members. Although American Canoe originally sued on its own behalf and in its representational capacity, it does not argue on appeal that it has standing to sue in its representational capacity. Sierra Club has standing to sue on behalf of its members when “its members would otherwise have standing to sue in their own right, the interests at stake are germane to the organization’s purpose,’ and neither the claim asserted nor the relief requested requires the participation of individual members in the lawsuit.” Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 181, 120 S.Ct. 693. A member of Sierra Club would have standing to sue in his own right when he has suffered a concrete and particularized injury in fact that is fairly traceable to the defendant’s actions and a favorable decision would redress his injury. Ailor, 368 F.3d at 596. The district court concluded that Sierra Club did not have standing to sue in its representational capacity because it could not establish that any of its members would have standing to sue in their own right. We disagree.
Sierra Club provided the affidavit of a member, Daniel Kash, in support of its standing to sue as the representative of its members for the defendants’ violations of the Act. Kash’s affidavit contained the following pertinent averments:
¶ 3. For many years I traveled to Louisa, Kentucky, which borders the Big Sandy River, as part of my duties as supervisor, Kentucky Division of Air Quality, State of Kentucky. I made this trip once per week. On many of these occasions I thought to myself what a *541terrible shame it was that the Big Sandy River was so polluted that I could not fish it, canoe it, or swim in it. As an avid fisherman this was emotionally upsetting to me.
¶ 4. Almost from the beginning of these trips, I was aware that the Louisa Water Treatment Plant was violating water pollution standards .... The river appeared to be dark and oily and smelled like petroleum products ....
¶ 6. About 10 years ago, I went canoeing on the Big Sandy River near Louisa. However, the water pollution and odor emanating from the River detracted from my enjoyment and, for this reason, I have not attempted to recreate on the River since then.
¶ 7. I will not currently fish or canoe in the Big Sandy River near Louisa. I do fish in the Ohio River about 12 miles downstream from the confluence of the Big Sandy River and the Ohio River. If the Big Sandy River near Louisa were not as polluted as it currently is, I would canoe and fish in it. In my opinion, not being able to canoe and fish on the Big Sandy River is a great loss to me and every other citizen in Kentucky.
¶ 8. Counsel for plaintiffs has informed me that the Louisa Waste Water Plant is violating its permit discharge limits, including for total suspended solids and oil and grease. I am very concerned about the harmful impacts that this pollution will continue to have on the water quality of these waters, including its fish and plant life.
¶ 9. I am interested in obtaining correct information about the amount of pollution in the Big Sandy River near Louisa so that I can make decisions about whether it is safe to fish, paddle, and recreate in this waterway. If the Louisa Water Treatment Plant and other dis-chargers do not monitor and report the pollution they discharge in accordance with their permits, this information will not be available ....
1. Aesthetic/Recreational Injury
The district court concluded that Kash had alleged only a generalized grievance and not an actual, individualized injury because it apparently found that Kash was not a person “for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be lessened by the challenged activity.” Laidlaw, 528 U.S. at 183, 120 S.Ct. 693 (internal quotation marks omitted). We conclude otherwise.
The plaintiffs in Laidlaw, Friends of Earth and Citizens Local Environmental Action Network, brought a complaint against Laidlaw Environmental Services, Inc., alleging that Laidlaw had violated its National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit and seeking injunctive and monetary relief for the violation. Id. at 175-76, 120 S.Ct. 693. The Court found that the affidavits supplied by the plaintiffs’ members had established an injury in fact. Id. at 183-84, 120 S.Ct. 693. In this case, Kash’s averments are virtually indistinguishable from those that the Court found sufficient to establish an injury in fact in Laidlaw.
For example, in Laidlaw, the Court upheld the standing of Friends of the Earth member, Norman Sharp, who averred that he “canoed approximately 40 miles downstream of the Laidlaw facility and would like to canoe in the North Tyger River closer to Laidlaw’s discharge point, but did not do so because he was concerned that the water contained harmful pollutants.” Id. at 183, 120 S.Ct. 693. Similarly, Kash averred that he fished twelve miles downstream, but would canoe on the Big Sandy River had it not been so polluted. Moreover, although Kash lives in Ashland, Kentucky, and not in Louisa, Kentucky, such a *542fact is not dispositive under Laidlaw because Kash has demonstrated an interest in canoeing and fishing in the affected area. See id. at 182, 120 S.Ct. 693 (noting that affiant Linda Moore lived twenty miles from the area in question, but that she would like to use the affected area). Kash averred that he had recreated in the affected area in the past and that he would recreate there currently, were it not for the pollution caused by the defendants’ discharge of effluents in excess of the limitations imposed by the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. Under the Court’s current environmental standing doctrine, Kash’s averments adequately alleged that he suffered an injury in fact to his aesthetic and recreational values. See id. at 183, 120 S.Ct. 693 (“We have held that environmental plaintiffs adequately allege injury in fact when they aver that they use the affected area and are persons ‘for whom the aesthetic and recreational values of the area will be lessened’ by the challenged activity.”) (citing Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 735, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972)).
2. Informational Injury
We also conclude that Sierra Club has standing to sue for its members’ informational injuries. The averments of its member, Kash, establish that the lack of information caused an injury beyond the “common concern for obedience to law.” L. Singer & Sons v. Union Pac. R. Co., 311 U.S. 295, 303, 61 S.Ct. 254, 85 L.Ed. 198 (1940). Kash attested that the lack of information deprived him of the ability to make choices about whether it was “safe to fish, paddle, and recreate in this waterway.” These allegations are sufficient to establish that Kash has suffered a concrete and particularized injury sufficient to confer Article III standing.1
3. Causation & Redressability
Sierra Club has also demonstrated that the injury in fact suffered by Kash is “fairly traceable to the ... allegedly unlawful conduct [of the defendants] and likely to be redressed by the requested relief.” Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984). The causation requirement of the constitutional standing doctrine exists to eliminate those cases in which a third party and not a party before the court causes the injury. See Lujan v. Defenders of Wildlife, 504 U.S. 555, 560, 112 S.Ct. 2130, 119 L.Ed.2d 351 (1992) (“[T]he injury has to be ‘fairly ... trace[able] to the challenged action of the defendant, and not ... th[e] result [of] the independent action of some third party not before the court.’ ”) (quoting Simon v. E. Ky. Welfare Rights Org., 426 U.S. 26, 41-42, 96 S.Ct. 1917, 48 L.Ed.2d 450 (1976)). The defendants argue that the Sierra Club has not sufficiently alleged *543causation because “[t]here is absolutely no evidence of any connection between anything going on at the Louisa -Water Plant and the various things in the river that are so troubling to Mr. Kash.” This argument lacks merit.
Sierra Club has alleged an ongoing violation of the Clean Water Act in that the defendants repeatedly violated' the terms of the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit issued to the City of Louisa Water & Sewer Commission by exceeding the effluent limitations and failing to monitor and report the effluent discharges. Notably, the defendants have not challenged these allegations and, given the procedural posture of this case, we must accept these allegations as true. As to Kash’s informational injury, because the injury itself is the lack of information, it necessarily follows that the defendants’ actions in failing to follow its monitoring and reporting obligations, which deprived Kash of the information, “caused” or is “fairly traceable” to the alleged injury.
As to Kash’s aesthetic and recreational injury, we similarly conclude that the alleged injury is fairly traceable to the defendants’ actions. Kash’s affidavit noted that the Big Sandy River appeared “dark and oily and smelled like petroleum products” and that it had an unpleasant odor. Sierra Club alleged that the defendants exceeded the effluent limitations contained in the discharge permit on numerous occasions and presented evidence that these specific types of effluent discharges could cause conditions similar to that complained of by Kash. See J.A. 157 (affidavit of Dr. Bruce A. Bell attesting that oil and grease discharges could cause the discoloration of the water and an unpleasant odor). Under these circumstances, we conclude that Sierra Club has sufficiently alleged that the injury is caused by or fairly traceable to the defendants’ actions to survive the defendants’ motion to dismiss for lack of standing. See Piney Run Pres. Ass’n v. County Comm’rs of Carroll County, 268 F.3d 255, 263-64 (4th Cir.2001) (“Traceability does not mean that plaintiffs must show to a scientific certainty that defendant’s effluent ... caused the precise harm suffered by the plaintiffs. Rather, a plaintiff must merely show that a defendant discharges a pollutant that causes or contributes to the kindp of injuries alleged.”) (internal quotation marks and citations omitted).
The defendants also argue that a favorable decision in this case will not redress the plaintiffs injuries because by the time the case is remanded for a judgment on the merits, the City will have completed a renovation project that will eliminate the pollution discharge problems. Relatedly, the City argues that this renovation project also makes this entire controversy moot. Again, we are unpersuaded.
As the Court reiterated in Laidlaw, the voluntary cessation of the allegedly unlawful behavior is generally insufficient to moot a case determining the legality of that behavior. 528 U.S. at 189, 120 S.Ct. 693 (citing City of Mesquite v. Aladdin’s Castle, Inc., 455 U.S. 283, 289, 102 S.Ct. 1070, 71 L.Ed.2d 152 (1982)). Indeed, “determining whether a case has been mooted by the defendant’s voluntary conduct is stringent: ‘A case might become moot if subsequent events made it absolutely clear that the allegedly wrongful behavior could not reasonably be expected to recur.’” Id. (quoting United States v. Concentrated Phosphate Export Ass’n, 393 U.S. 199, 203, 89 S.Ct. 361, 21 L.Ed.2d 344 (1968)). From the record in this case, we cannot conclude that the defendants have made this showing. Furthermore, even if the renovation project made it reasonably likely that the discharge vio*544lations would not recur, this hypothetical situation tells nothing about the likelihood that the defendants’ violations of the monitoring or reporting requirements of the discharge permit would recur.
B. Organizational Standing
American Canoe and Sierra Club also allege that they have standing to sue on their own behalf for the defendants’ monitoring and reporting violations. The district court’s opinion does not directly address this argument.
Unquestionably, an association may have standing to assert an injury to itself regardless of whether its members also have standing. Warth, 422 U.S. at 511, 95 S.Ct. 2197. As the Supreme Court has held: “There is no question that an association may have standing in its own right to seek judicial relief from injury to itself and to vindicate whatever rights and immunities the association itself may enjoy.” Id. In this case, American Canoe and Sierra Club have alleged that the defendants’ monitoring and reporting violations affected its efforts to “research the compliance status of Kentucky dischargers ... and to report the results of that research to [its] members; to propose legislation ...; and to bring litigation to prevent violation of the discharge limitations in the permit and thereby protect the waters affected by the facility’s discharge.” Thus, American Canoe and Sierra Club base their claim of standing purely on a theory of “informational injury.” They argue that if a statute has a reporting requirement and those reports are obligated to be made public they have suffered an injury in fact for Article III purposes, if they are denied this information by the defendants’ failure to report in the first instance. American Canoe and Sierra Club rely on FEC v. Akins, 524 U.S. 11, 118 S.Ct. 1777, 141 L.Ed.2d 10 (1998), where the Supreme Court found a cognizable informational injury under the Federal Election Campaign Act, and Public Citizen v. United States Department of Justice, 491 U.S. 440, 109 S.Ct. 2558, 105 L.Ed.2d 877 (1989), where the Court found a cognizable informational injury under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. Under the circumstances of this case, we agree that American Canoe and Sierra Club have demonstrated a comparable informational injury under the Clean Water Act.
It is black-letter law that standing requirements come in two flavors: first, as noted, the irreducible Article III minimum of an injury in fact, fairly traceable to the conduct of the defendants, and redressible by a favorable judicial decision; and second, prudential requirements-i.e., self-imposed (or, perhaps more accurately in this court, Supreme Court-imposed) limits on the federal judicial power. See, e.g., Elk Grove Unified Sch. Dist. v. Newdow, — U.S. -, -, 124 S.Ct. 2301, 2308, 159 L.Ed.2d 98 (2004). The prohibition on a plaintiff seeking redress for a “generalized grievance” has often been numbered among the latter. See id. at 2309; Devlin v. Scardelletti, 536 U.S. 1, 7, 122 S.Ct. 2005, 153 L.Ed.2d 27 (2002); Allen v. Wright, 468 U.S. 737, 751, 104 S.Ct. 3315, 82 L.Ed.2d 556 (1984); Sec’y of Md. v. Joseph H. Munson Co., 467 U.S. 947, 955 n. 5, 104 S.Ct. 2839, 81 L.Ed.2d 786 (1984); Valley Forge Christian Coll. v. Ams. United for Separation of Church & State, 454 U.S. 464, 475, 102 S.Ct. 752, 70 L.Ed.2d 700 (1982); Gladstone, Realtors v. Village of Bellwood, 441 U.S. 91, 120, 99 S.Ct. 1601, 60 L.Ed.2d 66 (1979) (Rehnquist, J., dissenting); Warth, 422 U.S. at 499, 95 S.Ct. 2197; Duke Power Co. v. Carolina Envtl. Study Group, Inc., 438 U.S. 59, 80, 98 S.Ct. 2620, 57 L.Ed.2d 595 (1978); United States v. Richardson, 418 U.S. 166, *545196 & n. 18, 94 S.Ct. 2940, 41 L.Ed.2d 678 (1974) (Powell, J., concurring). See also CHARLES ALAN WRIGHT, ARTHUR R. MILLER, & EDWARD H. COOPER, 13 FEDERAL PRACTICE & PROCEDURE § 3531, at 347 (2d ed.1984). It is therefore somewhat odd that the Court in Akins noted first that “respondents sa-tisf[ied] ‘prudential’ standing requirements” because Congress had granted standing to all citizens who could demonstrate an Article III injury, 524 U.S. at 19-20, 118 S.Ct. 1777, but then went on to discuss the “strongest argument” of the Federal Election Commission, that the lawsuit in Akins “involve[d] only a ‘generalized grievance.’ ” Id. at 23-25. Akins went on to reason, however, that the “generalized” quality of the grievance at issue — that the Federal Election Commission had failed to classify a particular group as a political committee, triggering certain disclosure requirements — was irrelevant so long as the grievance was “concrete.” The concreteness of the injury in Akins — the withholding of information relating to voting — was contrasted to the “ ‘abstract and indefinite nature’ ” of “harm to the ‘common concern for obedience to law.’ ” Id. at 23, 118 S.Ct. 1777. Where the grievance is general because it represents only the common interest in seeing the law obeyed, Congress cannot create standing because the injury is not concrete; where some actual injury befalls every member of the community, Congress can create standing regardless of the universality of that injury. See id. at 20-25, 118 S.Ct. 1777.
But Akins seems to require some additional “plus” to make an informational injury cognizable in the federal courts. See id. at 24-25, 118 S.Ct. 1777 (“We conclude that ... the informational injury at issue here, directly related to voting, the most basic of political rights, is sufficiently concrete and specific such that the fact that it is widely shared does not deprive Congress of constitutional power to authorize its vindication in the federal courts.”). This seems to be at some odds with the Court’s previous indication that “those requesting information under [the Freedom of Information Act] need [not] show more than that they sought and were denied specific agency records” to demonstrate standing, as well as its holding that an organization that wishes to force compliance with the Federal Advisory Committee Act can demonstrate a sufficient Article III injury through a federal agency’s failure “to permit [plaintiffs] to scrutinize [an alleged Advisory Committee’s] activities to the extent FACA allows .... ” Pub. Citizen, 491 U.S. at 449, 109 S.Ct. 2558. Thus, all that is necessary to demonstrate standing under the Freedom of Information Act and the Federal Advisory Committee Act is that a request for information has been rebuffed. It is difficult to see how those cases can be distinguished from Akins such that we should read into the Akins holding a firm requirement that to establish standing, a plaintiff must adequately, allege more than the withholding of the required information from the citizenry.
Under these circumstances, it becomes very difficult to distinguish the present case from those cases. Although this case involves a situation in which no agency previously denied the information desired to the plaintiffs, the injury remains the same. The question of a previous agency denial may be relevant to principles of exhaustion, but as for the injury alleged, American Canoe and Sierra Club desire certain information that the defendants are allegedly under a legal obligation to provide. This is precisely the injury alleged in Public Citizen and in the Freedom of Information Act cases. This might be a “generalized grievance” in the sense that up to the point they request it, the *546plaintiffs have an interest in the information shared by every other person, but it is not an abstract grievance in the sense condemned in Akins: the injury alleged is not that the defendants are merely failing to obey the law, it is that they are disobeying the law in failing to provide information that the plaintiffs desire and allegedly need. This is all that plaintiffs should have to allege to demonstrate informational standing where Congress has provided a broad right of action to vindicate that informational right. See Cass R. Sunstein, Informational Regulation and Informational Standing: Akins and Beyond, 147 U. PA. L. REV. 613, 643 n. 154 (“All that is clear is that after Akins a deprivation of information consists of an injury in fact if Congress has said so.”).2
To the extent that Akins requires some additional “plus” — some reason that plaintiffs need the information, in addition to a Congressionally-bestowed right to sue to acquire it — that requirement is liberally construed, and we believe it is easily met in this case. Indeed, the plus found in Akins and that found by the majority in Public Citizen are each themselves extraordinarily general; it is difficult to imagine what information would not make a citizen a better-informed voter, or would not affect her ability to participate in some workings of government. See Akins, 524 U.S. at 21, 118 S.Ct. 1777; Pub. Citizen, 491 U.S. at 449, 109 S.Ct. 2558. In this case, it is difficult to see how the organizations’ interest in “proposing legislation” is less concrete and particularized than “participating in the judicial nomination process,” which was the interest involved in Public Citizen. The interests alleged by American Canoe and Sierra Club are more like those interests alleged in Public Citizen and Akins than they are not. In determining whether an informational injury is sufficiently concrete, the universe of interests that will create a “plus” is larger than those that would support standing on their own (as evidenced by Akins’s reliance on voting, which is an interest shared by every citizen in America).
In sum, we hold that American Canoe and Sierra Club have sufficiently alleged an injury in fact. Although these organizations devote themselves to the protection and preservation of the environment, their claims are not based upon a purely ideological or societal interest. Cf. Morton, 405 U.S. at 739, 92 S.Ct. 1361. Rather, their claims rest upon their organizational interests which are negatively affected by the defendants’ failure to fulfill its monitoring and reporting obligations. Without this information, as noted, American Canoe’s and Sierra Club’s daily operations are stymied to the extent that they can no longer honor their own monitoring and reporting obligations to their members. Moreover, their ability to propose legislation and to bring litigation based upon the information collected by the defendants is clearly hampered. These activities are essential to their daily organizational activities and to fulfilling their institutional goals, and are sufficient to satisfy Akins. Although the defendant’s failure to fulfill its monitoring and reporting violations surely injures American Canoe’s and Sierra Club’s societal interest in seeing that the environmental laws are faithfully executed, this does not nullify the fact that these violations also prevent these organizations from performing their daily operations. As the Supreme Court found in *547Havens Realty Corp. v. Coleman, 455 U.S. 363, 379, 102 S.Ct. 1114, 71 L.Ed.2d 214 (1982), “[s]uch concrete an demonstrable injury to the organization’s activities-with the consequent drain on the organization’s resources-constitutes far more than simply a setback to the organization’s abstract social interest .... ” See also Sunstein, supra, at 654. (“[Standing is clearly available” where “an individual or institution is interested in obtaining information relating to enforcement of [an act of Congress], and that individual or organization has a demonstrable interest in the [subject matter and purpose of the act].”).
American Canoe and Sierra Club also meet the other requirements of constitutional standing. The analysis with regard to the causation and redressability requirements for establishing the constitutional standing of Sierra Club to sue on behalf of its member applies with equal force here such that it is unnecessary to address it further.
III.
For the foregoing reasons, we REVERSE the judgment of the district court and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.3

. Notably, there appears to be some disagreement between the Circuit Courts of Appeals as to whether a plaintiff alleging a violation of the Clean Water Act has standing to sue for a defendant’s monitoring and reporting violations absent standing to sue for a defendant's discharge violations. Compare Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Crown Central Petroleum Corp., 95 F.3d 358, 362 (5th Cir.1996) (“Because FOE's members do not have standing to sue for La Gloria's discharge violations, they do not have standing to sue for the reporting violations.”) with Magnesium Elektron, Inc., 123 F.3d at 124 (“Because we think that it is at least possible that some plaintiff in the future might allege a specific and concrete injury arising from a defendant’s failure to monitor and report its effluent discharges, we will not adopt the Fifth Circuit’s bright line rule.”) (footnote omitted). See also Sierra Club v. Simkins Indus., Inc., 847 F.2d 1109, 1113 (4th Cir.1988). However, given our conclusion that the Sierra Club, as the representative of its members, has standing to sue for defendants' discharge violations, we find no reason to analyze the merits of this argument.

. Congress in enacting the Clean Water Act and its citizen-suit provisions relied upon in this case "intended ... to allow suits by all persons possessing standing under [the Supreme Court’s] decision[s].” Middlesex County Sewerage Auth. v. Nat'l Sea Clammers Ass'n, 453 U.S. 1, 16, 101 S.Ct. 2615, 69 L.Ed.2d 435 (1981).

. Given our holding, we need not address the plaintiffs' argument that the district court erred in denying its motion for reconsideration filed pursuant to Federal Rule of Civil Procedure 59(e).