ELR Citation: ELR 20129
No(s). 04-2052 (4th Cir. Jun 21, 2005)

The court affirmed a lower court judgment that citizen groups that filed suit against two farms for spilling swine wastewater into North Carolina rivers without a national pollutant discharge elimination system permit satisfied the jurisdictional requirements for bringing a citizen suit under the Clean Water Act (CWA) §505(a). The parties eventually entered into a consent decree, but it was contingent on the groups being able to establish that they met the CWA's jurisdictional requirements. Here, the occurrence of three sporadic, post-complaint spill events demonstrated that the farms had not eliminated the "real likelihood of repetition" of CWA violations. Thus, the groups provided proof of ongoing violations as required by the CWA.

[A prior decision in this litigation is published at 33 ELR 20175.]