A new Supreme Court ruling widely criticized by environmentalists actually could lead to cleaner water flowing from the Inland Empire and Orange County into the ocean as soon as this year.So says the lawyer for a nonprofit environmental group, Orange County Coastkeeper, that favors tougher pollution rules as a way to protect fresh and salt water.“We’re leveraging (the ruling) as a positive thing,” said Sarah Spinuzzi, an environmental lawyer for Coastkeeper who last year wrote an amicus brief supporting what turned out to be the losing argument in the case in question, San Francisco v. the Environmental Protection Agency.In the case, the results of which were made public Monday, March 3, the Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that some of the regulations imposed by the EPA against the city of San Francisco were too broad. Instead, the ruling said, the Clean Water Act of 1972 – a foundational law that sets water pollution rules around the country – requires that fines or punishments imposed on a polluter must be based on a specific link to the pollution being discharged.Garry Brown, founder of Orange County Coastkeeper and a player in the current permit negotiations, believes some agencies and businesses use vague pollution rules as a way to “run out the clock” when they’re cited for violations. Instead of fixing a specific problem, Brown argued, many will hire a consultant who, in turn, will take years to craft a potential solution, a process that’s often cheaper than paying for the cleanup.Rules that might prevent that – by setting numerical limits on pollution and schedules for cleaning any discharge – are exactly what is spelled out in the new Supreme Court ruling.“I don’t agree with everything they said,” said Sarah Spinuzzi, an attorney for Orange County Coastkeeper. “But the Clean Water Act very clearly requires that you trace specific pollution to specific polluters. And, by reiterating that, the Supreme Court ruling is going to make our water cleaner.”Keep Reading
