Term: 2003
Docket: 02-626
South Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe Of Indians Et Al.
- Pro
02-626 SOUTH FLORIDA WATER MGMT. DIST. v. MICCOSUKEE TRIBE Ruling below: CA 11, 280 F.3d 1364. QUESTIONS PRESENTED The South Florida Water Management District (SFWMD) is the governmental agency that manages an extensive system of levees and canals throughout populous south Florida and the Everglades region. For decades it has pumped public waters to prevent catastrophic flooding and allocate water supply. For thirty years, the federal and state agencies responsible for the Clean Water Act's National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) program have considered the SFWMD's movement of water to fall outside the scope of the federal NPDES permit program because nothing is "added" to the navigable waters from the pumps. The Eleventh Circuit, in conflict with decisions from other courts of appeals and without deference to the agencies, concluded that because the pumped water contains some pollutants that would not reach the receiving water "but for" the pumping, such pumping alone constitutes an "addition" of pollutants requiring an NPDES permit. The questions presented, which are of great national importance, are: 1. Whether the pumping of water by a state water management agency that adds nothing to the water being pumped constitutes an "addition" of a pollutant "from" a point source triggering the need for a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit under the Clean Water Act. 2. Whether the court below should have deferred to the consistent and long-held federal and state agency position that the SFWMD's pumping does not constitute an "addition" that requires a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit. CERT. GRANTED: 6/27/03 Limited to question 1 presented by the petition.
The case of South Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians in 2003 revolved around the issue of whether pumping water from one body to another constituted a discharge under the Clean Water Act (CWA). The Miccosukee Tribe and Friends of the Everglades sued South Florida Water Management District, arguing that it was unlawfully discharging pollutants into a reservoir without a permit. The district court ruled in favor of the tribe, stating that moving polluted water from one navigable body to another required a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit under CWA. This decision was upheld by an appeals court but later challenged at Supreme Court level where it was remanded for further consideration on two points: firstly, if both bodies were meaningfully distinct such that they could be considered separate 'bodies' under CWA; secondly, if pumping added any pollutant not already present in receiving waters.
In the dissenting opinion for South Florida Water Management District v. Miccosukee Tribe of Indians, Justice Scalia argued that the majority's interpretation of the Clean Water Act was overly broad and inconsistent with its original intent. He contended that Congress did not intend to regulate all transfers of water from one body to another under this law, but rather only those involving an addition of pollutants. In his view, simply moving polluted water from one place to another does not constitute adding a pollutant; it merely redistributes existing pollution. Therefore, he believed that such transfers should fall outside the scope of federal regulation unless they introduce new pollutants into a body of water.
