Northwest Environmental Advocates v. City of Portland

Northwest Environmental Advocates (Northwest) (plaintiff) sued the City of Portland (Portland) (defendant) for violation of water quality standards referenced in Portland’s effluent-discharge permit. The permit was issued under the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) and stated that notwithstanding the effluent limitations set by the permit, no discharge was permitted that would violate water quality standards except in specified zones. Northwest’s suit was brought under the citizen-suit provision of the Clean Water Act (CWA), § 505, which allowed any citizen to bring a civil action against any person alleged to have violated an effluent standard, including an effluent limitation or a permit or condition thereof. The citizen-suit provision did not refer specifically to water quality standards. Portland argued that § 505 authorized suits only for violation of numerical effluent limitations, not more open-ended water quality standards. The district court accepted this argument and held that it had no jurisdiction to hear the suit. Northwest appealed. In an earlier case in which a state environmental agency added to the discharger’s permit a requirement that the discharger protect spawning fish runs, the United States Supreme Court rejected the argument that the CWA authorized enforcement of the objective, numerical criteria contained in effluent limitations but not broad, open-ended narrative rules. However, the Supreme Court expressly stated that open-ended water quality standards “must be translated into specific limitations” for specific projects. The legislative history of the 1972 amendments to the CWA stated that water quality standards “often cannot be translated into effluent limitations.”