ELR Citation: ELR 20077
No(s). 05-5015 (D.C. Cir. Apr 25, 2006)

The court vacates the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA's) approval of total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) limiting the annual discharge of oxygen-depleting pollutants and the seasonal discharge of pollutants contributing to turbidity in the Anacostia River in Washington, D.C. EPA argued that Congress, in requiring the establishment of TMDLs to cap effluent discharges of "suitable" pollutants into highly polluted waters, left room for EPA to establish seasonal or annual loads for those same pollutants. But these non-daily "daily" loads are contrary to the unambiguous language of the Clean Water Act. Daily means daily, nothing else. If EPA believes using daily loads for certain types of pollutants has undesirable consequences, then it must either amend its regulation designating all pollutants as suitable for daily loads or take its concerns to Congress.

[A prior decision in this litigation is digested at 33 ELR 20227.]