## Facts

- Taylor Energy Company, LLC owned and operated oil wells on a platform located about 11 miles offshore in the Gulf of Mexico.
- In 2004, a hurricane caused the platform and wells to detach and sink, after which oil began leaking into the Gulf.
- Taylor worked with the United States Coast Guard as part of a Coast Guard–directed Unified Command addressing the spill and response activities.
- Louisiana Environmental Action Network (LEAN), Waterkeeper Alliance, and Apalachicola Riverkeeper (the remaining plaintiffs after an earlier standing ruling) filed a federal citizen suit asserting violations of the Clean Water Act (CWA) and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
- Plaintiffs alleged the discharge continued for years and created a visible sheen on the Gulf’s surface.
- Plaintiffs alleged the ongoing discharge limited their members’ ability to use the Gulf near the site for recreation and impaired organizational activities tied to those waters.
- Under RCRA, plaintiffs pursued a “contributing-to” citizen-suit theory, alleging Taylor was contributing to the handling and disposal of solid or hazardous waste (the discharged oil) that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.
- Taylor moved to dismiss under Rule 12(b)(6) and, alternatively, asked the court to stay the case under the primary-jurisdiction doctrine based on the Unified Command’s ongoing response.

## Issues

1. Whether CWA § 1321 provides the exclusive statutory route for oil-discharge enforcement such that plaintiffs could not use the CWA citizen-suit provision to enforce CWA § 1311 for alleged oil discharges.
2. Whether plaintiffs stated a plausible CWA claim under § 1311 (and, alternatively, under § 1342) based on allegations of ongoing, unpermitted oil discharges.
3. Whether plaintiffs plausibly alleged a RCRA § 6972(a)(1)(B) claim that Taylor was contributing to the handling or disposal of oil that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.
4. Whether the court should stay the case under the primary-jurisdiction doctrine in deference to the Coast Guard–led Unified Command.

## Decision

- The court **granted in part and denied in part** Taylor’s Rule 12(b)(6) motion and **denied** Taylor’s request for a primary-jurisdiction stay.
- The court **denied** dismissal of the CWA claim **to the extent** it sought to enforce **CWA § 1311** through the citizen-suit provision; the court rejected Taylor’s argument that **§ 1321** is the exclusive means to litigate unpermitted oil discharges.
- The court **granted** dismissal of plaintiffs’ alternative CWA theory based on **§ 1342 (NPDES permits)** because Taylor allegedly had **no NPDES permit**, and a permit-based enforcement theory could not rest on violating a permit that did not exist.
- The court **denied** dismissal of the **RCRA § 6972(a)(1)(B)** claim, holding the complaint plausibly alleged that ongoing discharges could present an imminent and substantial endangerment.
- The court **denied** a stay, finding primary jurisdiction did not justify halting litigation simply because the Unified Command was managing the response.

## Legal Principles

- Under Rule 12(b)(6), the court accepts well-pleaded factual allegations as true and asks whether the complaint states a plausible claim for relief.
- The CWA citizen-suit provision (33 U.S.C. § 1365) may be used to enforce CWA § 1311’s general prohibition on unpermitted pollutant discharges; the presence of CWA § 1321’s oil-spill provisions does not, by itself, bar a citizen suit framed as enforcement of § 1311.
- A CWA theory premised on NPDES permit violations under § 1342 generally requires an existing permit obligation; where the defendant has no permit, a permit-violation theory is not plausibly stated on that basis.
- RCRA § 6972(a)(1)(B) authorizes citizen suits against a person “contributing to” the handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of solid or hazardous waste that “may present” an “imminent and substantial endangerment”; the standard is forward-looking and does not require proof of actual harm before suit.
- The primary-jurisdiction doctrine is discretionary and limited; agency involvement and technical response work do not automatically require courts to pause statutory citizen-suit claims that call for ordinary judicial determinations of statutory coverage and plausibility.

## Conclusion

The Eastern District of Louisiana allowed the case to proceed on plaintiffs’ CWA § 1311 citizen-suit theory and their RCRA imminent-and-substantial-endangerment claim based on alleged ongoing offshore oil discharges, dismissed only the alternative permit-based CWA § 1342 theory because no NPDES permit existed, and refused to stay the litigation under primary jurisdiction despite the Coast Guard–directed Unified Command’s continuing response.


Apalachicola Riverkeeper v. Taylor Energy Co., 954 F. Supp. 2d 448 (2013)