## Facts

- Concerned Area Residents for the Environment (CARE) and neighboring residents sued Southview Farm, a large New York dairy operation run as a confined feeding facility with roughly 1,200–1,400 cows.
- The farm stored liquid manure in multiple lagoons, including a large lagoon holding millions of gallons, then pumped manure through pipes into tankers and spread it on fields used for crop production.
- CARE members lived near fields receiving manure applications and reported multiple incidents in which freshly applied liquid manure and manure-colored water collected and flowed off fields into ditches, drainage structures, and tributary pathways leading to the Genesee River.
- Reported runoff events occurred on July 13, 1989; August 22, 1989; September 26, 1990; and April 15, 1991, often following heavy spreading and, in some instances, rainfall.
- Plaintiffs alleged the farm discharged pollutants (manure-laden runoff) into waters of the United States without a Clean Water Act NPDES permit and also asserted state-law claims including trespass.

## Issues

1. Whether Southview’s manure storage and land-application system constituted a Clean Water Act “point source,” including as a “concentrated animal feeding operation” (CAFO), rather than exempt agricultural stormwater runoff or other nonpoint pollution.
2. Whether the trial evidence was sufficient for a reasonable jury to find unpermitted discharges of manure to navigable waters (including tributaries) on the dates alleged.
3. Whether the agricultural and stormwater-related exclusions removed the farm’s discharges from Clean Water Act regulation.
4. Whether the district court properly granted judgment as a matter of law (JMOL) that set aside the jury’s Clean Water Act verdict.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit reversed the district court’s JMOL and reinstated the jury’s Clean Water Act findings.
- The court held that Southview’s operation qualified as a point source because it fit within the statutory category of a CAFO and used “discernible, confined and discrete conveyances” (including lagoons, pipes, tankers, and spreaders) to handle and apply manure.
- The court held that the stormwater/agricultural runoff theory did not defeat liability on these facts, where manure was applied through an engineered system and runoff predictably reached waters.
- The court held that circumstantial evidence, including eyewitness observations and runoff patterns, was sufficient to support the jury’s finding that manure reached navigable waters without a permit.
- The case was remanded for entry of judgment consistent with the jury’s Clean Water Act verdict and further proceedings.

## Legal Principles

- A CAFO is expressly included within the Clean Water Act’s definition of a “point source,” and engineered manure-handling and application equipment can qualify as “discernible, confined and discrete conveyances.”
- Land application of liquid manure may constitute a regulated discharge from a point source when manure, applied through a concentrated waste-management system, runs off into waters of the United States.
- The agricultural stormwater runoff concept does not bar Clean Water Act liability where discharges stem from a CAFO’s waste system and manure application practices rather than ordinary, diffuse precipitation runoff.
- In citizen enforcement actions, discharge and causation may be proven through circumstantial evidence and eyewitness testimony; direct sampling on specific dates is not required.
- JMOL is improper where the record permits reasonable jurors to draw different inferences; courts must view evidence favorably to the verdict winner and may not substitute their view of contested facts for the jury’s.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that a large confined dairy using lagoons and mechanized spreading could be treated as a CAFO point source and that the plaintiffs’ observations and related proof were enough for a jury to find unpermitted manure discharges to navigable waters, making the district court’s post-verdict JMOL erroneous.


Concerned Area Residents for the Env’t v. S. View Farm, 34 F.3d 114 (2d Cir. 1994)