US high court to weigh San Francisco water pollutant limits challenge
The nation’s high court has agreed to hear a water quality case next year that will examine U.S. Environmental Protection Agency authority to impose new wastewater discharge requirements on utilities that are based on conditions without specific numeric limits. San Francisco wants the U.S. Supreme Court to review a July 2023 opinion by judges from the federal appeals court in San Francisco that affirmed agency authority to include broad language prohibiting the pollution and placing conditions on the city’s National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit. Those conditions included requiring the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission to update its long-term control plan for managing combined-sewer overflows.