You're listening to In That Case, a Shook podcast series exploring timely court decisions that impact the business community. Presenters are Orange County attorneys. Let's listen in as Shook lawyers summarize the decision.
Tom:This one is another, an opinion that came out of the 9th circuit back in November, and this is a Clean Water Act case. So here, pretty interesting case out in Montana In Big Sky, there's a sewer district that operates a, water treatment facility. They treat wastewater, and then they use that to for irrigation in local resorts for golf courses and such. During the winter months, they actually because of the of course, because of the winter, there's a limited irrigation season. So they actually take all that treated water and they put it into holding ponds that are, out there in near Big Sky.
Tom:And what happened here is each of these holding ponds is lined with a polyethylene liner that's supposed to essentially prevent water from penetrating down into to the groundwater. Of course, it's not perfect, and there is some trace amounts of of water that do leak through. So what the sewer district, did is under underground, underneath these holding tanks they had or these holding ponds, they they have what essentially a perforated pipe that would collect any water and discharge it out to a local wetland. The case here was a Clean Water Act claim that was brought by an environmental group called the Cottonwood Environmental Law Center, and they alleged that the sewer district was discharging treated wastewater into a local river containing nitrogen without a proper known as a NPDES permit. So here, in in this case, the water district or excuse me, the environmental organization filed a motion for summary judgment and alleging that there was a a direct conduit between these holding ponds and the local river.
Tom:And, therefore, the sewer district was violating the Clean Water Act by discharging this this treated wastewater containing nitrogen. So, in this case, the trial court had denied the motion for summary judgment, and the case went to trial. At trial, the courts, ruled in favor of the sewer district, claiming that there was no unpermitted discharge into the river. And on appeal, the environmental group had challenged the trial court's denial of the motion for summary judgment, and they alleged that the court's denial was based on legal issues, not factual, because the court determined as a matter of law that the Seward District could not have discharge because there was no direct connection between the point source being the ponds and the impacted body of water or to inevitable body of water, which in this case was the river. And on appeal, the 9th Circuit reviewed this de novo, and they determined that, after reviewing all the evidence, that the trial court had properly denied the motion for summary judgment.
Tom:And in particular, the court said, on appeal, the court had determined that, no disputes based on the facts that were presented, that there was no direct connection between these holding ponds and and the river. Again, because one of the major, factors was that the plaintiff had admitted that the groundwater or the aquifer underneath these holding ponds was hydrogeologically connected to the river. And so even if underground propane pipe hadn't been there, any water that had leached out of these holding ponds would have naturally made its way to the river to begin with. And, for that reason, the court affirmed, the 9th circuit affirmed the ruling of the district court Montana.
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