Court Opinion

ID: 9478437
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 06:48:54.606413+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:46:25.692323
License: Public Domain

NATHANIEL R. JONES, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
While I agree with the majority’s conclusion that the district court was required to defer to the EPA’s stated policies concerning water quality changes, neither those policies nor any of the cases cited by the majority concern a facility which removes *591water, discharges it and, in the process, adds a foreign pollutant. More importantly, because I disagree with the majority’s conclusion that the Ludington facility merely changes the movement, flow, or circulation of navigable waters, I cannot accept the majority’s reliance on Gorsuch. In my view, the district court properly concluded that the Ludington “facility’s turbines ... create the pollutant in the process of discharging the water into the Lake and generating electricity.” 657 F.Supp. at 1008 (emphasis added). Since I cannot sufficiently distinguish the facility’s discharge of dead fish and fish remains in its turbine generating water from its discharges of other pollutants, I would affirm the district court’s order requiring Consumers to apply for a permit authorizing the release of dead fish into Lake Michigan. For these reasons, I respectfully dissent.