Court Opinion

ID: 9490394
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-05 13:42:22.307653+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T17:54:04.517869
License: Public Domain

MANION, Circuit Judge,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
Although I agree that the dismissal of Atlantic’s claims with respect to WDNR outfall 1 should be affirmed, I do not concur with the court’s reversal of the district court’s dismissal of claims with respect to outfall 3. In my opinion the court reads the notice and continuing violator requirements of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365 et seq., too broadly. Accordingly, I would affirm the district court’s dismissal of Atlantic’s claims in total.
I.
Stroh Die Casting Company manufactures zinc and aluminum castings in its Milwaukee, Wisconsin plant. The Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources (“WDNR”) has issued Stroh permits to discharge industrial waste-water through various outfalls into storm sewers which flow into Lake Michigan.
The Clean Water Act enables citizens to seek injunctive relief, civil penalties, and forfeitures (as well as attorneys’ fees) if violations of the Act are proved. Atlantic States Legal Foundation claims that Stroh violated the Act. In a November 8, 1988 letter from its law firm, Atlantic gave Stroh notice of its intent to sue in 60 days for certain purported violations of the Act, as 33 U.S.C. § 1365(b) requires Atlantic to do. In that notice, Atlantic alleged that Stroh had exceeded the daily maximum discharge limits for oil, grease, and “biological oxygen demand 5” allowed under the WDNR permit for WDNR outfalls 1 and 3. Nearly 3 months later, Atlantic filed suit against Stroh based on the notice. Pursuant to Fed.R.Civ. P. 12(b)(1), Stroh moved to dismiss Atlantic’s claims for lack of subject matter jurisdiction, arguing that Atlantic could not satisfy the requirements for a citizen suit under 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a) because any violations of the Act occurred in the past; Atlantic had failed to allege a state of continuing pollution, an impediment to recovery under the Act after Gwaltney v. Chesapeake Bay Found., Inc., 484 U.S. 49, 57, 64, 108 S.Ct. 376, 381, 385, 98 L.Ed.2d 306 (1987).
Rather than opposing Stroh’s motion to dismiss, on April 13, 1989, again in a letter from its law firm, Atlantic sent Stroh a second 60-day notice of intent to sue. That letter alleged Stroh had exceeded the maximum allowances for zinc, total phenol, and again for oil and grease, as well as that Stroh discharged diecasting wastewater into Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (“MMSD”) sewers without a permit. As a location for this discharge, the second notice mentions only “outfall 003”; the parties agree this refers to MMSD outfall 3. Three months later, the MMSD did issue Stroh an industrial wastewater discharge permit which defined five separate outfalls and set their *823effluent limitations. Under that permit, Stroh continued to discharge its industrial wastewater through MMSD outfalls 1, 3, and 4. After July 1989, these outfalls were monitored, tested, and reported to the MMSD.
Because Atlantic never responded to Stroh’s motion to dismiss and thus had waived the right to do so, the district court dismissed Atlantic’s suit without prejudice on November 14, 1989. Over six months later, on May 7, 1990, Atlantic filed an amended complaint alleging the same violations noticed in the April 13, 1989 letter. The district court accepted the filing, reopening this case.
In the meantime, Stroh had been designing and installing a new wastewater treatment system for its plant. In May 1990, Stroh wrote the MMSD explaining that it had failed to comply with an April 10, 1990 deadline for completing the new system because of a personnel difficulty, late delivery of the new system from the manufacturer, and installation problems. In June 1990, Stroh completed the installation of the new system, which combined the wastewater previously discharged at MMSD outfalls 1 and 3 with that discharged at MMSD outfall 4, pumped it through an ultrafiltration unit to extract all grease and oil, then through a pretreatment system, and then discharged the water only from MMSD outfall 4. MMSD outfalls 1 and 3 were later used for expelling waste and water not limited by the permit.
On October 23, 1990, the MMSD issued Stroh a new discharge permit which reflected the new outfalls and new treatment system. The last reported exceedence at WDNR outfall 3 occurred on February 27, 1990, although a February 2, 1992 laboratory test revealed that Stroh had exceeded the 10 milligrams per liter level for oil and grease at that outfall by 1 milligram. Stroh challenged the accuracy of that test, submitting a March 1992 letter in which the laboratory admitted that their oil measurements were off by 50% that day. Atlantic responded that the lab’s admitted error could only cut in its favor— that the flaw in the data would have led to under-, not over-reporting.
When Atlantic filed the amended complaint and the district court reopened the ease, Stroh moved to vacate the court’s ruling to reopen. The district court denied that motion, and the parties filed cross-motions for summary judgment. The district court granted Stroh’s summary judgment motion, denied Atlantic’s, and dismissed Atlantic’s amended complaint.
II.
The court first concludes that the April 1989 (second) notice to Stroh satisfied the jurisdictional requirements of 33 U.S.C. § 1365(b)(1)(A). I agree with the district court that Atlantic failed to fulfill the statutory condition precedent by notifying the proper parties, including Stroh, of any alleged violations at MMSD outfall 4, and therefore that any such violations are beyond the scope of this suit.
The court concludes that “there is no question that Atlantic’s April 1989 notice sufficiently informed Stroh about Atlantic’s claim that its handling of the die casting wastewa-ter did not comply with the statute.” Ante at p. 820. It so concludes by examining Stroh’s posi-complaint actions: securing a permit that covered the discharges, constructing a new wastewater treatment facility, re-routing the dieeasting wastewater to newly numbered outfall 4, and admitting it was not in compliance in its May 1990 letter to the MMSD. Id. The court surmises that “these are not the actions of a company that has not received enough information for purposes of the statutory notice provisions of the Act.” Ante at p. 820. But “[t]he mere chronological sequence of events does not establish a causal connection.” Brennan v. United Steelworkers of America, 554 F.2d 586, 614 (Aldisert, J., dissenting).
It is undisputed that Atlantic’s first notice of intent to sue on November 8,1988 did not mention discharge into the MMSD, and that the second notice on April 13, 1989 mentions only MMSD outfall 3, not MMSD outfall 4. The April 13th letter refers to discharges of “process water into Lake Michigan via the [MMSD]” and that Stroh “has violated and continues to violate an ‘effluent standard or limitation’ by discharging die casting process wastewater to MMSD without a pretreat*824ment discharge permit.” The letter then lists six specific examples of exceedences, each emitting from what the parties do not dispute is MMSD outfall 3. But Atlantic notified Stroh of this information when Stroh was correcting discharges from MMSD outfalls 1 and 3, not MMSD outfall 4. And Atlantic had easy access to all records of Stroh’s emissions, but made no mention of MMSD outfall 4 in this second notice, while specifically mentioning MMSD outfall 3. After specifically noticing only violations at outfall 3, it is wrong to include in this suit alleged violations at MMSD outfall 4 without notice to Stroh.
The Third Circuit more properly handled a situation similar to this. In Public Interest Research Group of New Jersey v. Hercules, Inc., 50 F.3d 1239 (3d Cir.1995), citizen plaintiffs sent out a notice of an intent to sue listing 68 discharges which allegedly occurred in violation of Hercules’ permits. Id. at 1243. As in this case, the district court held that pre-complaint discharge violations not included in the plaintiffs’ notice letter could not be included in the suit unless listed in a subsequent notice, and granted the defendant summary judgment. Id. at 1250. The Third Circuit reversed this holding, concluding that
a notice letter which includes a list of discharge violations, by parameter, provides sufficient information for the recipients of the notice to identify violations of the same type (same parameter, same outfall) occurring during and after the period covered by the notice letter.
Id. (emphasis supplied). The Hercules decision supplies a workable, bright-line rule to apply in cases such as this: violations “which are of the same type (same parameter, same outfall) as the alleged violations included in the plaintiffs’ 60-day notice letter,” id., should be deemed properly noticed.
In attempting to distinguish Hercules, my colleagues assert the Third Circuit “was not faced with a case where the alleged polluter, upon receiving a notice about one offending outfall, simply redirected the stream of contaminated water to another outfall.” Ante at p. 820. But the record does not support the metaphor that Stroh played a shell game with the regulatory authorities (and Atlantic) by constructing the new wastewater treatment. Although Stroh’s new system was installed in June 1990, three weeks after the amended complaint, it was designed from late 1989 to early 1990. During that time period only the original complaint was on file, which had been dismissed for, in effect, failure to prosecute. That complaint was based on the first notice to sue, which concerned solely WDNR outfalls 1 and 3. Further, the April 1989 notice made no mention of MMSD outfall 4. The installation of highly technical wastewater treatment equipment cost Stroh hundreds of thousands of dollars and was implemented on a schedule closely monitored by the MMSD. Its purpose was to consolidate, update, and improve Stroh’s treatment of wastewater. Stroh met with sewerage district officials concerning the two month delay in installing the new system, and explained the reasons for the delay in writing. To treat all of its wastewater through the new system, Stroh combined the three existing streams (which previously had been discharged at MMSD outfalls 1, 3, and 4) and routed them through its new system, with the treated water then discharged at new MMSD outfall 4. All of these facts lead to the conclusion that Stroh methodically and effectively addressed the problem, not that it hid the pea.
It is undisputed that MMSD outfall 4 was not a new outfall through which Stroh creatively re-routed wastewater to discharge. Stroh had operated MMSD outfall 4 as a separate and distinct outfall since July 1989, and it had separate effluent limitations since the original MMSD permit. Because reports from MMSD outfall 4 were available from July 1989 onward, Atlantic had access to the information necessary to provide Stroh, the EPA, and the WDNR with an appropriate notice of intent to sue for any violations at MMSD outfall 4. Atlantic did not do so. As the Supreme Court stated in Gwaltney, “the purpose of a notice to the alleged violator is to give it an opportunity to bring itself into complete compliance with the Act and thus likewise render unnecessary a citizen suit.” 484 U.S. at 60,108 S.Ct. at 383. For a notice to fulfill its function, the violator must be told *825what the pollution is and where it occurred. This court should not rewrite the second notice on Atlantic’s behalf to encompass information it had the opportunity to but did not include.
The consequence of the court’s expansive reading could be catch-all notices sent to companies which, if construed broadly as the court has done here, would encompass any violation, past or future. This, of course, would undermine the dual purposes of the notice requirement: to provide governmental entities with the opportunity to begin an enforcement action before the citizen suit is filed, and to provide the alleged violator with enough information to be able to bring itself into compliance. See Hercules, 50 F.3d at 1249. In Hercules, the Third Circuit judged the sufficiency of the 60-day notice letter by “whether it accomplishes these purposes.” Id. Because the April 13, 1989 notice letter in this case could not have given the EPA, the WDNR, or Stroh notice of a lack of compliance at MMSD outfall 4, this court should exclude from this suit any violations Atlantic alleges occurred there.
III.
Even if proper notice is given, the Clean Water Act only permits a citizen to bring a civil action if a person is “in violation” of a relevant standard, limitation, or order. 33 U.S.C. § 1365(a)(1)(A). If the person charged is not “in violation,” the plaintiff does not have standing under the Act. In Gwaltney, the Supreme Court set forth a test for standing under the Act: a plaintiff must make a “good-faith allegation of continuous or intermittent violation.” 484 U.S. at 64, 108 S.Ct. at 385. This means that a citizen plaintiff does not have standing to maintain a suit for civil penalties for wholly past violations of the act.1 Thus, for purposes of federal subject matter jurisdiction, citizen plaintiffs are required to show “a reasonable likelihood that a past polluter will continue to pollute in the future.” Id. at 57,108 S.Ct. at 381. Justice Scalia, joined by Justices Stevens and O’Connor, concurred in Gwaltney on exactly this issue. Id. at 67, 108 S.Ct. at 386-87. To them, standing should not turn on the plaintiffs good faith, but on the objective fact of whether the defendant was “in violation.” Id. at 69, 108 S.Ct. at 387-88.
On remand in Gwaltney, the Fourth Circuit held that a citizen plaintiff may prove an ongoing violation in one of two ways:
either (1) by proving violations that continue on or after the date the complaint is filed, or (2) by adducing evidence from which a reasonable trier of fact could find a continuing likelihood of the recurrence in intermittent or sporadic violations. Intermittent or sporadic violations do not cease to be ongoing until the date when there is no real likelihood of repetition....
890 F.2d 690, 693 (4th Cir.1989). “[Ejvery court thus far to consider this question” has adopted this test. Carr v. Alta Verde Indus., Inc., 931 F.2d 1055, 1062 (5th Cir.1991).
The court decides that this case presents a fact question as to whether Stroh was “in violation” at the time of the suit (which I agree is the date of the amended complaint, May 7, 1990). It adopts the approach from Carr that “the defendant has the burden at the summary judgment stage to demonstrate that the plaintiffs allegations of a continuous or intermittent violation do not raise a genuine issue of material fact.” 931 F.2d at 1062. The court has inserted a new “fact.” Because “the [April 1989] notice encompasses new outfall 4, the violation had certainly not ceased by the time the amended complaint was filed.” Ante at p. 821.
Because no violations at MMSD outfall 4 were properly noticed, this court should not conclude that any post-complaint excee-dences at outfall 4 qualify Stroh as a continuing violator. Further, if Atlantic’s second notice is given its proper scope not to include any exceedences at MMSD outfall 4, Atlantic does not have standing to bring this suit.
It is undisputed that the last permit excee-dence at WDNR outfall 1 occurred in No*826vember 1986, 3+ years before Atlantic filed its amended complaint. At MMSD outfall 3, there has not been a permit exceedence since June 1990, and there can be none, for since that date that outfall has been used to expel non-contact cooling water, not wastewater. Stroh’s new wastewater treatment system has been permanently connected and all industrial process wastewater previously discharged at MMSD outfall 3 (which was the subject of Atlantic’s April 13, 1989 notice) is discharged at MMSD outfall 4.
Atlantic argues that there is one reported exceedence at WDNR outfall 8 which was based on a faulty lab test, and that this should preclude summary judgment. Even if Atlantic is correct that any error in the lab test cuts in its favor, it has not met its burden to show that Stroh was an “ongoing or intermittent violator” at WDNR outfall 3. If those terms mean anything, they require more than the single 1 mg per liter oil excee-dence identified by Atlantic. Only stretching “ongoing” and “intermittent” beyond their breaking point could a court conclude from a single, heavily disputed exceedence in February 1992 that Stroh is currently “in violation” of the Clean Water Act. Cf. Public Interest Research Group of New Jersey v. Yates Industries, Inc., 757 F.Supp. 438, 447, modified on other grounds, 790 F.Supp. 511 (D.N.J. 1991) (permit holder may avoid liability at summary judgment if data in laboratory report presents direct evidence of inaccuracies). Even if Atlantic is correct that there was an exceedence in February 1992, according to the concurrence in Gwaltney, 484 U.S. at 69, 108 S.Ct. at 387-88, Atlantic must demonstrate that Stroh is in fact in violation of the Act. It should take more than an admittedly faulty lab result to satisfy this burden.
This case presents neither of the circumstances the Fourth Circuit recognized on remand in Gwaltney would prove an ongoing violation. It is undisputed that before Atlantic’s notices, there were exceedences at WDNR outfall 3 and unauthorized discharge of diecasting wastewater into sewers. Between the second notice and the amended complaint, Stroh obtained a comprehensive and demanding MMSD permit concerning its wastewater discharge. It also designed and built at its own great expense an entirely new MMSD wastewater processing facility which was put into place less than a month after Atlantic filed the amended complaint. Properly confining our review to noticed outfalls since the date of the amended complaint, there was a single, disputed excee-dence of 1 milligram of oil at one outfall, the finding for which was in an admittedly erroneous lab report. These facts show Stroh “cleaned up its act,” and is not reasonably likely to pollute in the future. The court’s expansive reading of the “in violation” requirement places an unreasonable burden on the company. Under Gwaltney, Stroh simply does not qualify as an “ongoing violator.” 2
IV.
I concur that the dismissal of Atlantic’s claims with respect to WDNR outfall 1 should be affirmed, but I would dismiss the claim with regard to WDNR outfall 3 as well due to Atlantic’s lack of standing.
For all of these reasons, I would affirm the opinion of the district court in full.

. This court clearly recognized this in Citizens for a Better Environment v. Steel Co., 90 F.3d 1237 (7th Cir.1996). That case discussed how the Supreme Court in Gwaltney interpreted the present tense language of the Clean Water Act to bar suits for past violations, and how such suits would render the Act's statutory notice provision meaningless. Id. at 1242-43.

. As the court recognizes, given that Stroh has had the new wastewater treatment system in place since June 1990, what truly may be at issue in this case is substantial attorneys' fees.