San Juan owns and/or operates an MS4 in the Municipality of San Juan, which discharges into various bodies of water including bodies of water within and comprising the San Juan Bay Estuary. The MS4 is a regulated small MS4. The Municipality submitted its Notice of Intent for coverage under the MS4 General Permit on March 7, 2008. San Juan's MS4 is intended to convey storm water runoff to surface waters to prevent flooding during wet weather events. The MS4 General Permit does not authorize San Juan to discharge non-storm water (with limited exceptions) from its MS4. Sampling and inspections established and confirmed that pollutants, including untreated industrial and/or domestic wastewater (raw sewage), were being discharged without treatment from San Juan's MS4 into receiving waters.
On June 16, 2014, the Department of Justice filed a Complaint against San Juan pursuant to Section 309(b) and (d) of the Clean Water Act, for violations of Section 301 of the Act, for unauthorized, illegal, and persistent discharges of pollutants and for failing to comply with the requirements of the MS4 General Permit. The Complaint was also filed pursuant to Section 504 of the Act, to require San Juan to take such action as may be necessary to abate the imminent and substantial endangerment to the health and welfare of persons presented by San Juan's discharges of pollutants. HTA was included in the First Amended Complaint on November 17, 2014.
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