Black Warrior Riverkeeper, Inc. v. Black Warrior Minerals, Inc.

PRYOR, Circuit Judge:

This appeal presents the issue whether an exception can swallow the general rule about the limited role of citizen suits under the Clean Water Act: that is, whether a citizen can evade the requirements of notice and a 60-day waiting period, 33 U.S.C. § 1365(b), by suing a discharger of pollutants for violations of the “new source” standards of the Act, id. § 1316, instead of violations of that discharger’s state-issued permit, even when that permit incorporates those standards. Congress has provided citizens a limited role in the enforcement of the Act, and ordinarily a…