United States v. Ortiz

LUCERO, Circuit Judge.

After a jury convicted David Ortiz of violating the Clean Water Act by negligently discharging a pollutant into the Colorado River, the district court entered a judgment of acquittal. The court ruled as a matter of law that an individual is not guilty of negligently discharging a pollutant unless he knows that the pollutant’s path terminates in protected water. This conclusion is at odds with the plain language of the Clean Water Act, which criminalizes any act of ordinary negligence that leads to the discharge of a pollutant into the navigable waters of the United…