Court Opinion

ID: 9473217
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 04:23:05.830282+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:43:23.561642
License: Public Domain

JERRE S. WILLIAMS, Circuit Judge,
specially concurring:
The opinion of my brother Jolly carries my full concurrence. I wish only to add one observation by way of emphasis. The allegation in this case is based upon only a single event of pollution. I concur with the interpretation of the Court that such a single event does not meet the statutory requirement of a polluter being “in violation ...” for purposes of a citizen suit.
I write to emphasize the narrow applicability of the holding of the Court. Appellants urge that the interpretation of the statute demanding a current violation of the standards would enable a polluter to “turn off the spigot” whenever a citizen brings suit. The much more likely situation would be that of a chronic episodic violator who happened not to be in violation at the precise time the citizen brought suit and with special care then avoids polluting while the suit pends. I would urge that the requirement that the polluter be “in violation” clearly is broad enough to cover the chronic episodic violator or the violator who intentionally “turns off the spigot” just before a citizen brings suit. In either of these circumstances, the statute should surely be interpreted to cover such violations as being current. Such circumstances are not at all the same as this case, so I wish to emphasize under the statute the difference between a single past event and a course of polluting conduct where continuity happens to be broken at the time citizen complaint is made and pursued. In the latter situation, the polluter is “in violation”.