United States v. City of Hoboken

In 1978, the City of Bayonne (Bayonne) (defendant), which operated a publicly owned sewage treatment plant, received its first point-source effluent-discharge permit, due to expire in 1983. The permit called for Bayonne to implement secondary-treatment technology to break down impurities in the water after solids had been screened out. The permit included effluent limits consistent with the use of such technologies. The Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) required all publicly owned treatment plants to be using secondary-treatment technologies by July 1977. Bayonne failed to meet this deadline and never installed any secondary-treatment technologies. In 1977, Congress had amended the FWPCA to allow the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (plaintiff) to extend the 1977 deadline to July 1983. The EPA had included such an extension in Bayonne’s 1978 permit and excused Bayonne from compliance with secondary-treatment standards. Instead, Bayonne was required to comply with interim standards, which Bayonne repeatedly violated. In March 1986, the state of New Jersey issued Bayonne a new permit, which was to run until 1991. Bayonne also violated the effluent limits in the 1986 permit. The EPA initiated a prosecution of Bayonne. Bayonne did not contest some of the violations. However, Bayonne contested more than 121 violations between July 1983 and March 1986. These discharges did not violate the interim standards in the 1978 permit but did violate the original secondary-treatment standards. The EPA argued that the interim standards were not in effect after July 1983, when the 1978 permit expired, and moved for partial summary judgment. Bayonne argued that the 1978 permit should be viewed as an ambiguous contract between the EPA and Bayonne, that the parties’ mutual intentions should be given weight in interpreting the permit, and that expiration of the interim limits had not been intended.