San Francisco won out and had some strange bedfellows supporting it in a lawsuit that reached the Supreme Court last year about the Environmental Protection Agency's power to regulate ocean water standards.

The Supreme Court ruled 5 to 4 Tuesday in favor of San Francisco, with the majority deciding that the EPA could impose specific requirements on a city or other entity, but it can not deem them responsible for the overall water quality in their surrounding area. Justice Samuel Alito wrote the majority opinion, with the four male conservatives joining him, Justice Neil Gorsuch only in part. Justice Amy Coney Barrett wrote the dissent, with the three liberals joining her.

It was a somewhat complicated argument, but the gist is that the City of San Francisco was facing harsh criminal penalties from EPA due to new "narrative guidelines" added in 2019 that held the city responsible for overall water quality off the coast, in the Pacific. The city argued that it had been following the EPA's guidelines to the letter when it came to discharging wastewater and storm runoff into the ocean, and it complained that the EPA's guidelines may not be specific enough if the agency was still imposing fines.

The EPA accused the city of "repeated and widespread failures to operate its two combined stormwater-sewer systems and sewage treatment plants in compliance with the law and its permits, and in a manner that keeps untreated sewage off the streets and beaches of San Francisco."

The lawsuit mentioned sewage that ended up in Mission Creek due to the stormwater-sewer system, including visible toilet paper, and as the New York Times notes, Justice Barrett quoted this section in her dissent. She wrote that the need for holding cities generally responsible when the overall water quality changes "is on display in this case — discharges from components of San Francisco’s sewer system have allegedly led to serious breaches of the water quality standards, such as 'discoloration, scum and floating material, including toilet paper, in Mission Creek.'”

In the city's oral argument back in October, Deputy City Attorney Tara Steeley compared the EPA's rules and penalties to a chef delegating cooking to a team of sous chefs, giving them a recipe to follow, and then complaining when the recipe turned out too salty. They also argued that other municipalities contributed to the overall water quality in the Bay and ocean, but SF was being penalized for it.

The conservative majority was inclined to agree, with Justice Alito saying that the EPA's narrative requirements were too general.

"When a permit contains such requirements, a permittee that punctiliously follows every specific requirement in its permit may nevertheless face crushing penalties if the quality of the water in its receiving waters falls below the applicable standards," Alito wrote in the decision.

San Francisco took pains to say that it had no problem with complying with the EPA's guidance, but that the guidance needed to be more specific.

But environmental groups now worry that the ruling could have sweeping implications for how municipalities and corporate polluters challenge EPA regulations, with potentially disastrous consequences for water quality.

"This will have an impact throughout California and throughout the country," said Eric Buescher, managing attorney for SF Baykeeper, speaking to ABC 7. "The city has provided a blueprint to other municipalities to industrial entities that discharge pollutants into water bodies as to how to avoid accountability or restrictions on their conduct."

Previously: San Francisco Has Its Day at the Supreme Court In EPA Case, Conservative Justices Seem to Side With City

Photo: Ian Hutchinson