Los Angeles County Flood Control District v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.
United States Supreme Court
133 S.Ct. 710 (2013)
The District (defendant) operated a storm-sewer system that collected polluted storm water and channeled it from concrete-lined sections of two rivers into natural, unlined sections of those same rivers, holding the required Clean Water Act permits; the NRDC and Baykeeper (plaintiffs) sued, claiming water-quality violations detected at monitoring stations meant a prohibited "discharge of a pollutant" occurred as the water flowed from the concrete channels into the unlined portions. The district court granted the District summary judgment, but the court of appeals reversed.
Whether, under the Clean Water Act, the flow of water from a concrete portion of a navigable waterway into an unimproved portion of the same waterway is a "discharge of a pollutant" as defined in the statute.