United States v. Robison

The Clean Water Act (CWA) prohibits the discharge of pollutants into navigable waters, and it defines navigable waters as “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.” In Rapanos v. United States, 547 U.S. 715 (2006), a case interpreting the term “navigable waters” as it applied to wetlands, the United States Supreme Court rejected a broad definition of navigable waters, but it did not explicitly establish a new definition of the term. In Rapanos, a five-justice majority concluded that the case should be remanded, but the majority did not share a unified rationale for the conclusion. Instead, Justice Scalia authored a four-justice plurality opinion defining navigable waters as (1) relatively permanent standing or flowing bodies of water, with (2) a continuous surface connection with a navigable water. Justice Kennedy agreed with the Scalia plurality that remand was necessary but rejected the plurality’s two requirements. Instead, Kennedy opined that a wetland not adjacent to a continuously flowing body of water must have a significant nexus with one for the wetland to constitute navigable waters. A significant nexus exists if the wetland significantly affects the water quality of the continuously flowing body of water. Justice Stevens and three other justices dissented, advocating for a broad definition of navigable waters. In 2004, manufacturing company McWane, Inc. (defendant) and McWane managers James Delk and Michael Devine (defendants) were indicted for violating the CWA by illegally discharging wastewater into Avondale Creek. Avondale Creek was a stream that flowed into a tributary of the Black Warrior River. No evidence was presented at trial that water from Avondale Creek reached the Black Warrior River, and thus there was no evidence that the Black Warrior River was harmed by the wastewater discharge. The district court instructed the jury that navigable waters include “any stream which may eventually flow into a navigable stream or river.” The jury convicted McWane, Delk, and Devine of CWA violation. McWane, Delk, and Devine appealed, arguing that the trial court had used the wrong definition of navigable waters in its jury instructions.