## Facts

- Lake Okeechobee’s historic southward flows were altered by federal flood-control projects, including canals and large pump stations.
- Canals collected rainwater and agricultural/urban runoff containing pollutants, and the South Florida Water Management District operated pumps moving canal water into Lake Okeechobee.
- The pumps transferred water between distinct bodies of water without chemically altering the water or adding pollutants during the transfer.
- Environmental groups and the Miccosukee Tribe sued under the Clean Water Act (CWA), alleging the pumping constituted an unpermitted discharge of pollutants from a point source to navigable waters, requiring an NPDES permit.
- The district court agreed, found a CWA violation, and enjoined the district to apply for an NPDES permit.
- While the appeal was pending, the EPA promulgated the Water Transfers Rule, stating that engineered transfers between navigable waters generally do not require NPDES permits when the transfer itself does not introduce pollutants.

## Issues

1. Whether the EPA’s intervening Water Transfers Rule mooted the appeal from an injunction requiring an NPDES permit for the challenged pumping operations.
2. Whether, given the new rule, the case still presented a live controversy suitable for appellate review of the existing district-court judgment.
3. Whether the court should reach the underlying CWA merits question (whether moving polluted water between navigable waters via pumps is an “addition” requiring an NPDES permit).

## Decision

- The Eleventh Circuit dismissed the appeal as moot.
- The court vacated the district court’s judgment and injunction requiring the district to apply for an NPDES permit.
- The case was remanded for further proceedings consistent with the intervening EPA regulation.
- The court declined to decide the underlying CWA merits question in this opinion.

## Legal Principles

- Federal courts must have a live case or controversy at all stages of review; intervening changes in controlling law can moot an appeal.
- When a district court’s injunctive relief rests on a legal premise displaced by a subsequent, controlling agency rule, appellate review of that judgment may no longer provide effective relief and may warrant vacatur.
- A dispute that becomes, in substance, a challenge to a generally applicable federal regulation must be pursued as a direct regulatory challenge rather than through continued enforcement of an injunction issued under a prior legal regime.
- Courts should resolve justiciability before merits; a mootness determination can preclude adjudication of contested statutory questions.

## Conclusion

Because the EPA’s Water Transfers Rule intervened during the appeal and supplanted the legal basis for the district court’s permit-required injunction, the Eleventh Circuit treated the controversy as moot, vacated the judgment, and remanded without deciding whether the Clean Water Act independently required an NPDES permit for the pumping transfers.


Friends of the Everglades v. S. Fla. Water Mgmt. Dist., 570 F.3d 1210 (11th Cir. 2009)