October 24, 2024
In what could prove a landmark ruling, with private industry groups and public officials involved in the skirmishing, the U.S. Supreme Court may be on the verge of yet one more action regarding the enforcement powers of the Environmental Protection Agency.
Members of the higher court have now heard oral arguments in City and County of San Francisco v. Environmental Protection Agency focusing on restricting the EPA’s ability to apply comprehensive water quality standards in the use of public sewage systems.
The case stems from a suit filed by the City and County of San Francisco arguing that it cannot be held responsible for the water quality of its systems heading into the immediate Mission Creek and beyond that the Pacific Ocean, although it accepts the management and control of that water within its systems.
The EPA has maintained that San Francisco, which discharges upwards of some 2 billion gallons of stormwater and raw sewage into the ocean on an annual basis, must be responsible for everything it discharges, no matter where those discharges end up.
The case, notes the San Francisco Chronicle, has placed San Francisco, in the “unusual position of siding with oil companies and business groups and against the state and federal regulations.”
San Francisco operates an older system that allows for the running of wastewater and stormwater though the same pipes. It is a system, according to sources, that many times overflows during particularly heavy rains.
When that overflow occurs, it has resulted in human waste being pushed into the surrounding waters.
San Francisco city officials contend that it would cost at least $10 billion to upgrade its sewer system.
To say that almost everyone has become involved in the litigation is seen by an amicus brief submitted by the Farm Bureau Federation, contending that EPA standards in such matters are already excessive and “expose farmers to potentially devastating and unnecessary costly consequences of government enforcement, action or citizen suit.”
On the other side, a group called San Francisco Baykeeper has charged that the city has dumped raw sewage and even trash directly into surrounding waters “at a magnitude that’s almost incomprehensible,” adding that sewage runoff has forced San Francisco to “close beaches and waterways on numerous occasions over the past five years.”
It is expected that the higher court will issue a decision in the case before the conclusion of its current term next June.
By Garry Boulard
