Judge Allows Wider Limits on River Pollution

A federal judge says the Environmental Protection Agency can set limits on pollution of rivers by such sources as logging and agricultural runoff.

The ruling by U.S. District Judge William Alsup, made public Wednesday, is the first by a federal judge to say that the federal government has the authority under the 1972 Clean Water Act to quantify the amount of pollution coming from diffuse or so-called “non-point” sources, according to the EPA.

Such pollution is by far the most prevalent form of contamination in rivers and streams. Almost all of the 509 California streams classified as impaired are contaminated with non-point pollution.

Without the ability to measure such pollution, government agencies cannot fashion cleanup plans or order compliance by polluters.

Using such measurements, states decide how to achieve limits through restrictions on logging, road-building and other practices that cause erosion and chemical runoff. States can lose federal funds if they fail to require reductions.

Before 1991, the EPA set pollutant limits on discharges from “point sources” only--such sources as drain pipes from sewage systems and industrial plants. Farm groups in the lawsuit argued that the agency had no power to limit pollution from other sources.

Alsup’s ruling in a suit filed by two Mendocino County landowners and joined by farm organizations is not binding on other courts. But Clinton administration officials said it would be a national precedent.

California’s Water Quality Control Board backed the EPA. The ruling “appropriately holds people responsible for their part in creating the pollution,” said Sandra Michioku, spokeswoman for Attorney General Bill Lockyer, whose office represented the board.

In his 29-page ruling, Alsup said the Clean Water Act did not distinguish between sources of pollution in requiring quality standards for all waterways.

“To have excluded the large number of rivers and waters polluted solely by agricultural and logging runoff would have left a chasm in the otherwise ‘comprehensive’ statutory scheme,” the judge said.