Opinion of the Court
hurdles, such as requiring the consent of the State where the pollution originated. See 62 Stat. 1156–1157. Despite repeated amendments over the next two decades, few actions were brought under this framework.[1]
Congress eventually replaced this scheme in 1972 with the CWA. See 86 Stat. 816. The Act prohibits “the discharge of any pollutant” into “navigable waters.” 33 U. S. C. §§1311(a), 1362(12)(A). It broadly defines the term “ ‘pollutant’ ” to include not only contaminants like “chemical wastes,” but also more mundane materials like “rock, sand,” and “cellar dirt.” §1362(6).
The CWA is a potent weapon. It imposes what have been described as “crushing” consequences “even for inadvertent violations.” Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., 578 U. S. 590, 602 (2016) (Kennedy, J., concurring). Property owners who negligently discharge “pollutants” into covered waters may face severe criminal penalties including imprisonment. §1319(c). These penalties increase for knowing violations. Ibid. On the civil side, the CWA imposes over $60,000 in fines per day for each violation. See Note following 28 U. S. C. §2461; 33 U. S. C. §1319(d); 88 Fed. Reg. 989 (2023) (to be codified in 40 CFR §19.4). And due to the Act’s 5-year statute of limitations, 28 U. S. C. §2462, and expansive interpretations of the term “violation,” these civil penalties can be nearly as crushing as their criminal counterparts, see, e.g., Borden Ranch Partnership v. United States Army Corps of Engineers, 261 F. 3d 810, 813, 818 (CA9 2001) (upholding Agency decision to count each of 348 passes of a plow by a farmer through “jurisdictional” soil on his farm as a separate violation), aff’d by an equally divided Court, 537 U. S. 99 (2002) (per curiam).
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the
- ↑ See Hearings on Activities of the Federal Water Pollution Control Administration before the Subcommittee on Air and Water Pollution of the Senate Committee on Public Works, 90th Cong., 1st Sess., 674 (1967) (reporting only one abatement suit between 1948 and 1967).
