## Facts

- United States Steel Corporation operated the Gary Works steel facility in Indiana, discharging pollutants into the Grand Calumet River, the Indiana Harbor Canal, and Lake Michigan.
- Under the Clean Water Act, point-source discharges required an NPDES permit containing technology-based effluent limits and related monitoring and reporting conditions.
- EPA issued an NPDES permit for Gary Works in 1974 setting effluent limitations, a compliance schedule, and monitoring/reporting requirements.
- After administrative proceedings, including an adjudicatory hearing and a limited remand, EPA reissued the permit in 1976 with modifications but retained strict effluent limits and increased monitoring.
- EPA expanded monitoring at discharge points by increasing both the frequency of measurement and the number of pollutants monitored, citing the nature, volume, variability, and impacts of the discharges and existing monitoring practices.
- U.S. Steel petitioned for appellate review of the permit and also filed a separate district court action seeking to challenge related EPA regulations and state water quality standards; the district court dismissed the suit.

## Issues

1. Whether EPA lawfully imposed the challenged NPDES permit conditions (effluent limitations, compliance schedules, and expanded monitoring/reporting) and whether the conditions were supported by substantial evidence and consistent with the Clean Water Act and EPA regulations.
2. Whether a permit review proceeding (or a collateral district court action) may be used to challenge the validity of state water quality standards and generally applicable EPA regulations underlying the permit.
3. Whether the Clean Water Act’s judicial review scheme and time limits required dismissal of U.S. Steel’s district court action.

## Decision

- The court denied U.S. Steel’s petition for review and upheld EPA’s permit decision.
- The court held EPA acted within statutory authority in setting effluent limitations, compliance schedules, and enhanced monitoring requirements.
- The court found the challenged permit conditions were reasonable, not arbitrary or capricious, and supported by substantial evidence in the administrative record.
- The court held U.S. Steel could not collaterally attack state water quality standards or generally applicable EPA regulations in permit litigation.
- The court affirmed the district court’s dismissal because the Clean Water Act channeled such challenges into specific review procedures and deadlines, precluding collateral district court review.

## Legal Principles

- NPDES permits may include effluent limitations, compliance schedules, and monitoring/reporting conditions necessary to assure compliance with the Clean Water Act.
- Review of EPA permit conditions applies deferential administrative law standards; courts do not replace the agency’s technical judgments when the agency provides a reasoned explanation supported by the record.
- Permit conditions withstand review when supported by substantial evidence and not arbitrary, capricious, or contrary to law.
- Challenges to generally applicable EPA regulations and approved state water quality standards must be brought through the statute’s designated review mechanisms and within statutory time limits, not through later facility-specific permit challenges or collateral district court actions.
- Where Congress provides an exclusive judicial review scheme for agency actions, district courts lack jurisdiction over duplicative or collateral suits that bypass that scheme.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit upheld EPA’s authority to impose stringent NPDES permit limits and expanded monitoring at a major industrial facility based on the administrative record, and it enforced the Clean Water Act’s exclusive review channels by rejecting collateral attacks on underlying regulations and state standards and affirming dismissal of the parallel district court action.


United States Steel Corp. v. Train, 556 F.2d 822 (7th Cir. 1977)