On Aug. 27, Maui County, Hawaii, filed a writ of certiorari seeking Supreme Court consideration of the long-running Maui County case that started with a lawsuit in 2012. This could have widespread implications on water pollution law.
Maui County is asking the Supreme Court to reverse an appeals court ruling that found the county is liable for discharging treated wastewater underground because it eventually seeped into the Pacific Ocean. The Clean Water Act explicitly states that it doesn’t apply to pollution that has been injected into groundwater. But the issue becomes less clear if that groundwater then seeps into a body of water that the law does apply to, such as a river, ocean, or lake.
The county is asking the Supreme Court to overturn a March 30 ruling from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.
The Maui case is Maui Cty. v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund, U.S., No. 17A1343, 8/27/18. (Bloomberg BNA, 8/28/18)
