Sierra Club v. Meiburg

The Clean Water Act (CWA) gave the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (defendant) the responsibility to ensure that water quality standards were set. Under the CWA, states were required to designate the use to which a particular body of water was to be put and then to set an appropriate water quality standard for that water body. Each state was required to establish the total maximum daily load (TMDL) of each pollutant that could pass through a body of water each day without violating the standard. Each state was also required to prepare a list of waterways with appropriate TMDLs. The EPA had authority to approve the lists. If a state delayed in submitting its TMDLs, the EPA was responsible for listing the state’s waterways and setting TMDLs for each. As of 1994, the state of Georgia had established only two TMDLs for its 340 designated bodies of water, although the CWA had been in effect for 16 years. The Sierra Club (plaintiff) sued the EPA in federal district court, asking the court to require the EPA to establish and implement TMDLs for Georgia. In 1997, the Sierra Club and the EPA negotiated a consent decree. The decree set a schedule according to which the EPA was to develop 124 TMDLs for Georgia waters, to be established or finalized within six months. The decree required the EPA to complete establishment of TMDLs for Georgia by 2004. The district court approved the consent decree. The EPA established most of the TMDLs according to the schedule, but Georgia failed to implement the TMDLs. By 1999, only one of the 124 Georgian bodies of water met water quality standards. In 2000, the Sierra Club moved the district court to compel EPA deputy administrator Stan Meiburg (defendant) to set out implementation plans for the 124 TMDLs. The EPA argued that the decree did not require it to prepare these plans. The district court modified the consent decree to require the EPA to prepare implementation plans. The EPA appealed.