Basically, the EPA has been saying “we don’t care what you actually release, so long as the water you release it into is at least [this] clean” after you do it." With this approach, the city has to monitor the water, and they become responsible for whatever anybody dumps in the water anywhere, even outside the city’s jurisdiction. When a cruise ship dumps its sewage tanks overboard 30 miles up current, the city is responsible for that dumping, even though they have no jurisdiction over the ship.
The court said this isn’t acceptable. They said the EPA - not the city - is responsible for the water. The EPA must specify exactly what can and cannot be released. If they aren’t satisfied with the water quality, they have to tell the city to release less, and/or go after the other entities doing the dumping.
Basically, the EPA has been saying “we don’t care what you actually release, so long as the water you release it into is at least [this] clean” after you do it." With this approach, the city has to monitor the water, and they become responsible for whatever anybody dumps in the water anywhere, even outside the city’s jurisdiction. When a cruise ship dumps its sewage tanks overboard 30 miles up current, the city is responsible for that dumping, even though they have no jurisdiction over the ship.
The court said this isn’t acceptable. They said the EPA - not the city - is responsible for the water. The EPA must specify exactly what can and cannot be released. If they aren’t satisfied with the water quality, they have to tell the city to release less, and/or go after the other entities doing the dumping.
This ruling is much ado about nothing.
Thanks. Since it was San Francisco suing, I’d been meaning to look more into it.
I understood it as the epa can’t enforce how much people dump now?
No, that’s not true at all. The EPA can still set specific standards on what, when, how much, and how often they can dump.
They just can’t offload responsibility for ensuring water quality to the dumper: They have to actually enforce their dumping standards.
lot of work for the EPA that’s getting 65% of its staff cut!