The Supreme Court agreed Monday to wade into a dispute between environmentalists and the Trump administration over the Air Force’s disposal of hazardous munitions on a Guam beach that activists say threatens the island’s main water supply.
The justices took up an appeal by the government, which is seeking to overturn a lower court decision that required the Air Force to perform an environmental review as part of renewing its permit to burn or detonate unexploded ordnance on the U.S. territory in the Pacific Ocean.
The Air Force has been disposing of munitions on a northeastern stretch of the island since 1982, renewing its permit every three years with the Guam environmental authority. The military applied for its last permit in 2021, but it has yet to be approved following public concerns about pollution and contamination.
Prutehi Guahan, a Guam-based cultural preservation and environmental group, sued in 2022, arguing the Air Force is required to conduct a review under the National Environmental Policy Act. The law requires federal agencies to examine the environmental impact of any major action before moving forward.
The group said the government should examine new technologies that could lessen the impact of the disposal on the natural world.
“The detonation range sits above Guam’s sole-source aquifer, which provides drinking water to more than 80% of Guam’s population,” the group wrote in a high court filing. “Local residents recreate on Tarague Beach and fish offshore; communities harvest traditional medicines nearby; and the beach is a habitat for endangered green sea turtles and migratory seabirds.”
A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit, before a divided panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit found the Air Force was required to conduct an environmental review.
The government argues in its petition to the Supreme Court that another law, the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act of 1976, relieved the Air Force of having to prepare an environmental-impact statement.
The Trump administration said requiring an environmental review to renew a permit in such circumstances would be a major burden on government agencies and a waste of resources, since the Recovery Act already requires an assessment of the impact on the natural world.
The government said the blast site is on a remote section of the island that is entirely on Andersen Air Force Base.
Last term, the Supreme Court narrowed the scope of environmental reviews for major infrastructure projects. The ruling came in a case overturning a lower court block on a future rail line in Utah that would carry billions of gallons of oil.
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