On June 30, 2025, the Supreme Court declined to hear Port of Tacoma v. Puget Soundkeeper Alliance. The Port had asked the Court to limit the ability of citizen groups to sue in federal court over state permit violations. The Court said no.
That decision has real consequences for every Washington facility with an industrial stormwater permit.
What happened
In January 2017, Puget Soundkeeper Alliance filed suit against APM Terminals, a cargo terminal operator at the Port of Tacoma. The allegations centered on stormwater discharges into the West Sitcum Waterway.
The numbers weren’t good. Copper exceeded permit benchmarks in every quarter except one—more than 64% of the time since 2005. Zinc exceeded benchmarks more than 55% of the time over the same period.
When APM Terminals left in October 2017 without installing the required stormwater treatment systems, the Port of Tacoma took over permit coverage. SSA Terminals became the facility operator. APM settled in 2018, paying $368,000 to environmental groups.
But the case against the Port and SSA continued. And it raised a legal question that mattered far beyond Tacoma.
The legal question
Washington’s Industrial Stormwater General Permit (ISGP) includes requirements that go beyond what the federal Clean Water Act strictly requires. These are state-level additions—extra protections that Ecology includes in the permit.
The Port and SSA argued that citizens couldn’t use federal court to enforce these broader state requirements. They could only enforce what federal law actually mandates.
The Ninth Circuit disagreed. In June 2024, the court ruled that the Clean Water Act allows citizens to sue over any condition in an NPDES permit—including state requirements that exceed federal minimums.
The Port asked the Supreme Court to step in. The Solicitor General’s office even filed a brief recommending the Court take the case. But on June 30, 2025, the Court declined.
Why this matters
The Ninth Circuit’s ruling stands. In Washington and every other state covered by the Ninth Circuit, citizen groups can now use federal court to enforce the full scope of your stormwater permit—not just the federal floor, but every state requirement built on top of it.
Washington’s ISGP has plenty of those additional requirements. All of them are now enforceable through citizen suits in federal court.
And federal enforcement is declining. That means more citizen suits, not fewer.
What citizen enforcement looks like
Citizen suits under the Clean Water Act are a well-established enforcement mechanism. Puget Soundkeeper, the organization behind the Port of Tacoma case, has been active in this space since 1992. According to their website, they’ve brought more than 170 legal actions, with settlements directing over $5.16 million toward environmental restoration and water quality projects.
The process works like this: compliance data for permitted facilities is publicly available through databases like Washington PARIS and EPA ECHO. Anyone can review it. When a citizen group identifies potential violations—benchmark exceedances, missed sampling events, documentation gaps—they’re required to send a 60-day notice letter before filing suit. That window gives facilities time to address the issues.
The statutory maximum penalty under the CWA is $37,500 per violation, per day. In practice, most cases settle. A typical settlement ranges from $50,000 to $100,000. Defending a case through federal court can cost $300,000 or more, which often makes settlement the more practical option.
What facilities should do
The Port of Tacoma case removed a potential limit on citizen enforcement. The practical takeaway: your exposure to citizen suits just got broader.
A few things worth doing:
Audit your compliance records. Look at your DMR submissions, sampling schedules, and benchmark results. The same data citizen groups use is public record.
Check for the gaps they target. Missed sampling events. Late DMR submissions. Benchmark exceedances without documented corrective action. These are the patterns that show up in 60-day notice letters.
Fix problems before the notice arrives. Once you get that letter, you have 60 days to come into compliance before they can file suit. But the violations are already on record. Getting ahead of the problem is better than reacting to it.
If you want help identifying what’s in your compliance record before someone else does, that’s what we do.