UPDATE 1-U.S. Supreme Court agrees to hear Hawaii water pollution dispute

The U.S. Supreme Court on Tuesday agreed to consider limiting the scope of a landmark law aimed at curbing water pollution in a dispute pitting an environmental group against local authorities in Hawaii over a wastewater treatment plant. The justices agreed to hear an appeal by Maui County of a lower court ruling last year siding with the Hawaii Wildlife Fund in its 2012 lawsuit accusing local officials of violating the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The San Francisco-based 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals found that a Clean Water Act program requiring property owners responsible for polluted water discharged from pipes, drains or other "point sources" to obtain federal permits should apply to discharges from the county wastewater facility that end up in the Pacific Ocean. The Hawaii Wildlife Fund said in its 2012 lawsuit that the county violated the Clean Water Act because several million gallons of treated wastewater from the Lahaina Wastewater Reclamation Facility ends up in the Pacific Ocean every day.

The legal question is whether the county needs a permit even though the waste reaches the ocean via groundwater underneath the wells and is not discharged directly into the ocean through a pipe or other means. The court will hear oral arguments and issue a ruling in its next term, which starts in October and ends in June 2020.

(Reporting by Lawrence Hurley; Editing by Will Dunham)