United States Ninth Circuit

In a Clean Water Act (CWA) case seeking to force the EPA to promulgate guidelines relating to storm water pollution discharges caused by construction and development, summary judgment for plaintiffs is affirmed where: 1) plaintiffs challenged the EPA's failure to promulgate industry wide rules under section 505(a)(2) of the Clean Water Act, not the substance of existing regulation; 2) plaintiff has standing because organization members' use of particular waterways is diminished due to concern from construction sites, the injury is traceable and is redressable by the effluent limitation guidelines (ELGs) and new source performance standards (NSPSs) sought by plaintiff; and 3) the EPA listed construction sites as a point source category under CWA section 304(m), for which it must promulgate ELGs and NSPSs.

Appellate Information

• Argued 07/17/2008
• Decided 09/18/2008
• Published 09/18/2008

Judges

• MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judge:, Before:  BARRY G. SILVERMAN, JOHNNIE B. RAWLINSON, and MILAN D. SMITH, JR., Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Ninth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellees:
  
• Robert Lundman, United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C., for the defendants-appellants., Jeffrey Longworth, Barnes & Thornburg LLP, Washington, D.C., for the defendants-intervenors-appellants., Kim Landsman, Patterson Belknap Webb & Tyler LLP, New York, NY, & Melanie Shepherdson, National Resources Defense Council, Washington, D.C., Layne Friedrich, Lawyers for Clean Water, Inc., San Francisco, CA, for the plaintiffs-appellees., Douglas P. Carstens, Chatten Brown & Carstens, Santa Monica, CA, & Richard Dearing, State of New York, New York, NY, for the plaintiffs-intervenors-appellees.