In order to improve water quality by controlling toxicants in wastewater, the department of ecology shall in issuing and renewing state and federal wastewater discharge permits review the applicant's operations and incorporate permit conditions which require all known, available, and reasonable methods to control toxicants in the applicant's wastewater. Such conditions may include, but are not limited to: (1) Limits on the discharge of specific chemicals, and (2) limits on the overall toxicity of the effluent. The toxicity of the effluent shall be determined by techniques such as chronic or acute bioassays. Such conditions shall be required regardless of the quality of receiving water and regardless of the minimum water quality standards. In no event shall the discharge of toxicants be allowed that would violate any water quality standard, including toxicant standards, sediment criteria, and dilution zone criteria.
RCW 90.48.520
Review of operations before issuance or renewal of wastewater discharge permits—Incorporation of permit conditions.
Known as the Coastal Waters Protection Act
The act spans §§ 90–90 (82 sections).
Applied in 7 court decisions — leading case Puget Soundkeeper Alliance v. Pollution Control Hearings Board (2015)
Most recently applied in 3 Wash. 3d 633 - City of Tacoma v. Dep't of Ecology (September 2024)
1987 c 500 s 1.
How often courts cite this section
Court decisions citing this, by year. The dip in the last several years is a data-coverage gap, not a real trend — our corpus holds fewer opinions from the most recent years, so recent citations are undercounted.
Official source: Washington State Legislature. Reproduced from public-domain Washington statutes; confirm against the official source for the current text. Not legal advice.