## Facts

- EPA issued technology-based effluent limitation guidelines for seafood-processing facilities under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act Amendments of 1972 (Clean Water Act).
- The regulations divided the industry into subcategories (including salmon and bottom-fish processing, and remote versus non-remote plants) and set numerical limits for pollutants such as BOD, TSS, and oil and grease.
- EPA identified certain technologies as the basis for the limits, including screening, dissolved air flotation (DAF), and (for certain operations) aerated lagoons.
- Industry petitioners, led by Association of Pacific Fisheries, sought judicial review, arguing EPA relied on sparse or unrepresentative sampling and flawed methodology.
- Petitioners asserted compliance costs were excessive relative to benefits and that some facilities could not meet limits with the prescribed technology.
- A central challenge targeted aerated lagoons, contending EPA failed to account for land-acquisition costs and siting constraints, especially where land was scarce or expensive.
- Petitioners also offered post-promulgation evidence to attack EPA’s assumptions, raising whether review could consider materials outside the administrative record.

## Issues

1. Whether EPA’s seafood-processing effluent limitation guidelines reflected reasoned decision-making supported by the administrative record under the Clean Water Act and the APA.
2. Whether EPA adequately considered costs and feasibility of the selected technologies, particularly aerated lagoons, including land-acquisition and siting constraints.
3. Whether judicial review was confined to the administrative record or could consider post-promulgation evidence offered by petitioners.

## Decision

- The court upheld most of the challenged effluent limitations and technology determinations, finding EPA’s technical judgments largely supported by the record.
- The court rejected the argument that EPA’s reliance on imperfect or limited data, disclosed and explained in the rulemaking, rendered the regulations arbitrary or unlawful.
- The court remanded the portion of the regulations relying on aerated lagoons because the record did not adequately show EPA considered significant land-related costs and feasibility constraints.
- On the scope of review, the court treated the administrative record as the primary basis for decision and used post-promulgation material only in a limited way to test whether EPA proceeded on fundamentally false assumptions.

## Legal Principles

- Courts review EPA technology-based effluent limits deferentially and will uphold them if the agency shows a rational connection between record facts and regulatory choices.
- EPA may rely on incomplete data when statutory deadlines and practical limits constrain sampling, so long as limitations are disclosed and inferential methods are reasonable.
- Technology-based standards may be set on an industry-wide basis using model technology performance; they need not be tailored to each facility’s economics.
- EPA must consider costs and feasibility in selecting the technology basis for effluent limits; failure to address major cost components central to viability (such as land acquisition for lagoons) can require remand for further explanation.
- Judicial review of informal rulemaking is generally confined to the administrative record, with limited consideration of later-developed evidence only to evaluate whether the agency’s premises were fundamentally unsound.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit sustained EPA’s seafood-processing effluent guidelines as largely supported by reasoned decision-making on the existing record, but remanded the aerated-lagoon-based requirements for additional agency analysis and explanation regarding land-acquisition costs and siting feasibility.


Ass’n of Pac. Fisheries v. EPA, 615 F.2d 794 (9th Cir. 1980)