This case involves the Georgia Environmental Protection Division’s the “EPD” issuance of a permit to Forsyth County, authorizing two of the county’s water-reclamation facilities to discharge treated wastewater into the Chattahoochee River. Following the issuance of the permit, Upper Chattahoochee Riverkeeper, Inc., “UCR” challenged the EPD’s decision by filing a petition with the Office of State Administrative Hearings. The County intervened to defend the permit, and although the presiding administrative law judge “ALJ” dismissed most of UCR’s claims on summary determination, after an evidentiary hearing, the ALJ ruled that the permit was issued in violation of Georgia’s water anti-degradation rule and ordered the Director of the EPD to reissue the permit with stricter effluent-discharge limits. Subsequently, the EPD and County sought superior-court review. The superior court reversed the ALJ’s decision and remanded the case for further proceedings. UCR now appeals, arguing that the superior court erred by 1 failing to properly interpret the anti-degradation rule, 2 treating an EPD guidance document as governing law, 3 ignoring Supreme Court of Georgia precedent, and 4 finding that the ALJ lacked the authority to order the director of the EPD to reissue the permit with revised effluent limits. For the reasons set forth infra, we affirm all but one aspect of the superior court’s ruling.
The record shows that on August 18, 2010, the EPD, a division of the Georgia Department of Natural Resources, issued a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System “NPDES” permit to Forsyth County, authorizing the discharge of treated wastewater from the Fowler and Shakerag water reclamation facilities “WRFs” into the Chattahoochee River approximately nine miles downstream from the Buford Dam and 27.5 miles upstream from the Morgan Falls Dam. The permit authorized the WRFs to discharge six million gallons of treated wastewater per day into the river. In addition, the permit established limits for the quality of the discharged wastewater by placing restrictions on effluents such as phosphorus and fecal coliform bacteria. Specifically, the permit limited the WRFs’ combined monthly average discharge of fecal coliform1 to 200 colony-forming units per 100 milliliters of water “cfu/100ml” and limited the monthly average discharge of total phosphorus2 to 0.3 milligrams per liter “mg/l”.
