Opinion ID: 3016887
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: the contaminant at issue is a RCRA “solid” or

Text: “hazardous waste”; (3) the contaminant is present at levels above that considered acceptable by the state; and (4) there is a pathway for current and/or future exposure. 263 F. Supp. 2d at 838. At least two of these requirements are irreconcilable with § 6972(a)(1)(B). 5 The first requirement requires a “population,” but § 6972(a)(1)(B)’s disjunctive phrasing, “or environment,” means a living population is not required for success on the merits, as we discuss infra. The third requirement, apparently intended by the District Court to give quantitative meaning to the word “substantial” in § 6972(a)(1)(B), is similarly without support. The word “substantial” is not defined by the statute or its legislative history. Turning to a dictionary, we find that 5 The second requirement is superfluous as it merely repeats the second element of § 6972(a)(1)(B), which requires a “solid or hazardous waste.” Although not expressly stated, the fourth requirement is implicit in a finding of liability under § 6972(a)(1)(B). 15 “substantial” means “having substance” and “not imaginary”; only as the last of several definitions does the dictionary offer “of considerable size or amount.” Webster’s New Universal Unabridged Dictionary 1817 (2d ed. 1983). These definitions do not support one particular type of quantification measurement, such as the District Court’s requirement that there be an exceedence of state standards. Honeywell, tacitly following Cox, 256 F.3d at 300, equates “substantial” with “serious,” which also does not support one particular type of quantification measurement. As noted, the word “substantial” is not defined by the statute or its legislative history, and we have not found any binding authority which stands contrary to this analysis. It is thus difficult to see how § 6972(a)(1)(B) justifies the kind of hurdle created by the District Court’s third quantitative requirement – let alone the even higher requirements for “substantial” that Honeywell argues for, without citation. Honeywell’s arguments actually provide an additional reason why we will not read state standards into the language of this federal law. Honeywell contends that its conceded discharges into the Hackensack River could not possibly be “substantial” because New Jersey has not yet established a remedial standard for river sediment chromium. We do not believe that Congress intended § 6972(a)(1)(B) to be dependent upon the states in such a manner, and the statutory language provides no support for such dependency. When Congress enacted RCRA in 1976, it sought to close “the last remaining loophole in environmental law, that of unregulated land disposal of discarded materials and hazardous wastes.” H.R. Rep. No. 1491, 94th Cong., 2d Sess. 4, reprinted in 1976 U.S.C.C.A.N. 6238, 6241. As we have noted, there is no definition or explanation of the meaning of “substantial,” but a discussion of RCRA’s amendments observes that § 6972(a)(1)(B) is “‘intended to confer upon the courts the authority to eliminate any risks posed by toxic wastes,’” S. Rep. No. 98-284, 98th Cong., 1st Sess. at 59 (1983) (quoting Price, 688 F.3d at 213-14), and further that courts should “recogniz[e] that risk may be assessed from suspected, but not completely substantiated, relationships between imperfect data, or from 16 probative preliminary data not yet certifiable as fact.” Id. (internal quotations and citations omitted). This supports neither the District Court’s particular quantitative requirement nor the even higher and more narrow quantitative standards that Honeywell would have us impose. Decisions of the other courts of appeals are not to the contrary. None require a particular quantitative showing as a sine qua non for liability. See Parker, 386 F.3d at 1015 (considering evidence of contamination at levels requiring landfill operator to notify state agency but determining substantialness on totality of the evidence); Cox, 256 F.3d at 299-301 (finding endangerments at two dumps on totality of the evidence; considering evidence of exceedences as to only one dump); Dague, 935 F.2d at 1356 (affirming endangerment finding without considering any quantitative evidence). The only support we have found for the District Court’s requirement is district court authority that is readily distinguishable. In Price v. U.S. Navy, 818 F. Supp. 1323 (S.D. Cal. 1992), a district court heard testimony from the defendant’s two experts that an endangerment under § 6972(a)(1)(B) could only be found upon satisfaction of the four requirement standard that the District Court used in the present case. The Ninth Circuit affirmed without discussing the experts’ four requirements, 39 F.3d 1011 (9th Cir. 1994). Other lower courts have, from time to time, treated the experts’ testimony as law without examining the statutory validity of the four requirements. We decline to follow Price. Plaintiffs in this case were required to make a merits showing higher than that actually contemplated by the statute. Even under the higher requirements, the District Court found endangerments as to both human health and the environment as well as actual harm to the environment. As we will discuss below, these findings are not clearly erroneous. The District Court’s inadvertent legal error with respect to the higher requirements it applied is therefore harmless, as plaintiffs were required to prove, and did prove, more than was needed, not less. See McQueeney v. Wilmington Trust Co., 779 F.2d 916, 917 (3d Cir. 1985) (error is harmless in civil context if there is a high 17 probability that it did not affect the outcome of the case). Proof of contamination in excess of state standards may support a finding of liability, and may alone suffice for liability in some cases, but its required use is without justification in the statute. Accordingly, Honeywell’s argument that the District Court erred by not grafting even higher quantitative requirements onto § 6972(a)(1)(B) is without merit.