The Clean Water Act requires a permit to discharge pollutants through pipes, ditches, and channels from an oyster hatchery, even though the facility would not be subject to the Act’s permitting requirements as a “concentrated aquatic animal production facility,” the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Olympic Forest Coalition v. Coast Seafoods Co., 884 F.3d 901 (9th Cir. 2018).
Coast Seafoods owns and operates an oyster hatchery adjacent to Quilcene Bay in Washington. As part of its operation, the hatchery discharges pollutants into the bay through pipes, ditches, and channels. The plaintiff filed a citizen suit alleging that Coast’s discharges violated the Clean Water Act because it did not have a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit.
The Clean Water Act requires a NPDES permit to discharge pollutants from a point source, which is defined as “any discernible, confined and discrete conveyance, including but not limited to any pipe, ditch, channel, . . . [or] concentrated animal feeding operation [CAFO] . . . from which pollutants are or may be discharged.” 33 U.S.C. § 1362(14). Under EPA regulations, a CAFO includes a “concentrated aquatic animal production facility” (CAAPF). EPA regulations further provide that an aquatic animal production facility is a CAAPF if it meets certain criteria based on the type and size of the operation and the frequency or quantity of pollution discharges. See 40 C.F.R. § 122.24.
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