7313

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 7313
• Author: Upper Colorado River Commission.
• Title: Forty-Second Annual Report of the Upper Colorado River Commission
• USFW Year: 1990.
• USFW - Doc Type: Colorado River Storage Project and Participating Projects.
• Copyright Material: NO

(11) Since Glen Canyon Dam was closed in 1963, the estimated virgin
flow for the subsequent 27 years is 14.7 million acre-feet. The es-
timated historical flow for the same prriod (1963-1990) is 9,8 million
acre-feet,

B. LEGAL

1. WATER NEWSLETTER
The legal staff continues to inform the Commissioners, their advisers,
and other interested parties about developments in the courts, Congress,
and certain Federal agencies through the Water Newsletter. Current
information can be found in the newsletter. In addition, the legal staffhas
prepared legal memoranda on matters needing more detailed treatment.

2. COURT CASES
Action has been taken in a number of cases of importance to the Upper
Colorado River Basin States, These cases include:

Oklahoma v, Environmental Protection Agency, 10th Cir., 908 F .2d 595.
In these consolidated appeals, appellants challenged certain actions of
respondent Environmental Protection Agency (EP A) in issuing a Clean
Water Act (CWA) discharge permit to the City of Fayetteville, Arkansas
(the City) pursuant to the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System
for a new municipal wastewater treatment plant. The City proposed to
discharge treated wastewater into both the White River in Arkansas and
into Mud Creek, a tributary of the Illinois River, an Arkansas-Oklahoma
interstate stream. Based on its review of the language of the CW A and
EP A's implementing regulations, the legislative history of the CW A, and
cases interpreting the CW A, the Tenth Circuit held that "no discharge to
a navigable water, such as the Illinois River, may be permitted unless
compliance with all applicable water quality requirements, including the
federally approved standards of affected downstream states, is assured."
The Court also held that EP A's decision to issue the City's permit was
arbitrary and capricious, finding that EPA's decision was flawed by mis-
interpretation and misapplication of Oklahoma's water quality standards
(WQS) and arbitrary disregard for expert testimony regarding the violations
of the WQS that were already occurring and the existing degraded con-
dition of the Illinois River. The Court therefore reversed EP A's decision
authorizing the City to discharge a portion of its effluent into the Illinois
River, holding that "where water quality standards violations are already
occurring in the receiving waters, no additional point source discharge to

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