Southern California Municipal Agencies Succeed in Overturning EPA Approval/ Disapproval of Los Angeles Region's Basin Plan

Downey Brand representing the Cities of Los Angeles, Burbank, and Simi Valley and the Los Angeles County Sanitation Districts was successful in a challenge to EPA's May 26, 2002 disapproval of implementation language contained in the Basin Plan, which would have immediately imposed permit requirements more stringent than drinking water standards, and which would have allowed regulation based on narrative standards without a clear methodology for translating those narrative standards into numeric permit limits.

Federal court judge Manual Real determined that the municipal drinking water (MUN) use was only conditional designated and that the conditions had not yet been fulfilled. Therefore, the Regional Board could not impose effluent limitations based upon that use. Further, the court found that the narrative objective for Toxicity contained in the Basin Plan violated the Clean Water Act because the Act requires numeric criteria for toxic pollutants and the narrative objective failed to include a translation methodology as required by 40 C.F.R. §131.11(a)(2). The Federal District Court order, signed Dec. 18, 2001, remanded the matter back to U.S. EPA for further action.

On February 15, 2002, U.S. EPA Region IX issued an amended approval/ disapproval letter confirming that the MUN use could not be used to set effluent limits and clarified the requirements of the Basin Plan's narrative objective for Toxicity.

For more information on challenges to Basin Plan provisions or EPA approvals, please contact Katharine Wagner, Melissa Thorme, Nicole Granquist, Missy Verhaag, and Jonathan Shardlow. Additional information concerning Downey Brand's Environmental Law Practice Group is available by clicking the link below.

Environmental Law Practice Description

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