## Facts

- Laidlaw operated a hazardous-waste incineration facility in South Carolina and held an NPDES permit regulating wastewater discharges into the North Tyger River, including mercury limits.
- Laidlaw repeatedly exceeded permit limits and committed monitoring and reporting violations.
- After required notice by two environmental groups, the state environmental agency settled a state enforcement action with Laidlaw for a $100,000 civil penalty and an agreement to make “every effort” to comply.
- The environmental organizations filed a Clean Water Act citizen suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief and civil penalties.
- The district court found numerous post-complaint violations, including multiple mercury exceedances and monitoring/reporting violations.
- Members submitted evidence that knowledge of Laidlaw’s violations reduced their recreational use and aesthetic enjoyment of the river.
- The district court declined injunctive relief based on later “substantial compliance” but imposed $405,800 in civil penalties to deter future violations.
- The court of appeals ordered dismissal as moot after Laidlaw achieved compliance and later closed the facility, reasoning civil penalties payable to the Treasury did not redress plaintiffs’ injuries.

## Issues

1. Whether the organizations had Article III standing based on members’ reduced recreational use and aesthetic enjoyment of the river due to alleged permit violations.
2. Whether post-complaint compliance and later facility closure mooted the case under the voluntary-cessation doctrine, particularly where civil penalties were the primary remaining remedy.
3. Whether civil penalties payable to the government can satisfy Article III redressability in a Clean Water Act citizen suit.
4. Whether a prior state enforcement action barred the citizen suit under the Clean Water Act’s diligent-prosecution bar.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- The Court held plaintiffs had standing: members’ curtailed recreational and aesthetic use of the river, based on reasonable concerns and knowledge of permit violations, was a concrete injury fairly traceable to Laidlaw.
- The Court held the case was not moot: voluntary cessation does not moot a case unless it is “absolutely clear” violations cannot reasonably recur, and Laidlaw did not carry that burden.
- The Court held civil penalties can provide redress because they deter future violations and reduce the risk of continued or recurrent harm to plaintiffs’ interests.
- The Court rejected application of the diligent-prosecution bar on this record.

## Legal Principles

- Environmental injury in fact may be shown by diminished recreational and aesthetic use of a natural resource caused by reasonable concerns stemming from unlawful pollution, without proving actual health or ecological harm.
- A claim of mootness based on voluntary cessation requires the defendant to prove it is “absolutely clear” the challenged conduct cannot reasonably be expected to recur.
- Civil penalties payable to the government may satisfy redressability in environmental citizen suits when they deter future violations that threaten plaintiffs’ concrete interests.
- The Clean Water Act’s diligent-prosecution bar applies only when the government is diligently prosecuting an action to require compliance; a prior settlement does not automatically preclude a citizen suit.

## Conclusion

The Court held that affected residents had standing to pursue a Clean Water Act citizen suit where permit violations led them to avoid using a river for recreation and aesthetic enjoyment, and it ruled the case was not mooted by the defendant’s later compliance or shutdown because deterrent civil penalties can redress the injury and voluntary cessation imposes a heavy burden to show non-recurrence.


Friends of the Earth, Inc. v. Laidlaw Env’t Servs. (TOC), Inc., 528 U.S. 167 (2000)