Washington Trout v. McCain Foods, Inc.

Washington Trout, the United Food and Commercial Workers, Local 1439, and the Central Basin Audubon Society brought a Clean Water Act citizen suit against McCain Foods alleging violations of 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq., and R.C.W. § 90.48.010 et seq., based on the discharge of pollutants from a potato processing plant owned by the defendant. The district court dismissed the lawsuit for lack of subject matter jurisdiction after determining that the plaintiffs had not complied with the notice provisions of 33 U.S.C. § 1365 and 40 C.F.R. § ^¿(a). Specifically, the district court found that the plaintiffs had not properly provided the dates of the alleged violations or the addresses and phone numbers of any of the plaintiffs as required by the statute and regulation. Plaintiffs appeal.

On February 25, 1992, plaintiffs’ attorney, Bill Kloos, sent McCain Foods [McCain] a sixty-day notice under the Clean Water Act [CWA] alleging that McCain’s potato processing plant in Othello, Washington was discharging pollutants into the Owl Creek and/or its tributaries without a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System [NPDES] permit. The letter stated in part that “the United Food and…