This 1st Circuit Clean Water Act Decision Makes Complete Sense Except In The Real World

Almost two years to the day after the United States Supreme Court's decision in Maui v. Hawaii Wildlife Fund,  the First Circuit Court of Appeals rendered its decision in The Blackstone Headwaters Coalition v. Gallo Builders.   Both opinions interpreting the Federal Clean Water Act were authored by legal giants and both make compete sense except in the real world.

In Maui,  in an attempt to address the millions of property owners who don't have a federal permit authorizing their discharges of "pollutants" to groundwater, Supreme Court Justice Breyer shared the Court's expectation that District Court Judges would "exercise their discretion mindful, as we are, of the complexities inherent in the context of indirect discharges through groundwater, so as to calibrate the Act's penalties when, for example, a party could reasonably have thought that a permit was not required."