Cite as: 528 U. S. 167 (2000)
Scalia, J., dissenting
woefully short on "specific facts," and the vague allegations of injury they do make are undermined by the evidence adduced at trial.
Typically, an environmental plaintiff claiming injury due to discharges in violation of the Clean Water Act argues that the discharges harm the environment, and that the harm to the environment injures him. This route to injury is barred in the present case, however, since the District Court concluded after considering all the evidence that there had been "no demonstrated proof of harm to the environment," 956 F. Supp. 588, 602 (SC 1997), that the "permit violations at issue in this citizen suit did not result in any health risk or environmental harm," ibid., that "[a]ll available data . . . fail to show that Laidlaw's actual discharges have resulted in harm to the North Tyger River," id., at 602-603, and that "the overall quality of the river exceeds levels necessary to support . . . recreation in and on the water," id., at 600.
The Court finds these conclusions unproblematic for standing, because "[t]he relevant showing for purposes of Article III standing . . . is not injury to the environment but injury to the plaintiff." Ante, at 181. This statement is correct, as far as it goes. We have certainly held that a demonstration of harm to the environment is not enough to satisfy the injury-in-fact requirement unless the plaintiff can demonstrate how he personally was harmed. E. g., Lujan, supra, at 563. In the normal course, however, a lack of demonstrable harm to the environment will translate, as it plainly does here, into a lack of demonstrable harm to citizen plaintiffs. While it is perhaps possible that a plaintiff could be harmed even though the environment was not, such a plaintiff would have the burden of articulating and demonstrating the nature of that injury. Ongoing "concerns" about the environment are not enough, for "[i]t is the reality of the threat of repeated injury that is relevant to the standing inquiry, not the plaintiff's subjective apprehensions," Los Angeles v. Lyons, 461 U. S. 95, 107, n. 8 (1983). At the very least, in
199
Page: Index Previous 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 NextLast modified: October 4, 2007