Northwest Environmental Advocates v. EPA

The federal district court for the Western District of Washington granted summary judgment to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and intervenor-defendants King County and City of Tacoma in a citizen suit filed in 2021 that asserted that EPA failed to perform a nondiscretionary duty to issue total maximum daily loads (TMDLs) for the Puget Sound. Plaintiff Northwest Environmental Advocates alleged that projected increases in nitrogen pollution, combined with climate change, were expected to worsen dissolved oxygen levels in the Sound and that the State of Washington had failed to submit any TMDLs for nitrogen and dissolved oxygen depletion despite evidence of worsening problems. The court found that given the State’s submission of TMDLs in 2022 for Budd Inlet, an inlet to South Puget Sound, and the ongoing implementation of a nutrient reduction plan, the State had not “clearly and unambiguously decided not to submit Puget Sound dissolved oxygen TMDLs” and the court therefore could not conclude that the State had submitted no such TMDLs under the constructive submission doctrine.