ELR Citation: ELR 20043
No(s). 03-2760 et al (3d Cir. Feb 18, 2005)

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court's injunction under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) requiring a company to clean up a chromium-contaminated site along the Hackensack River in New Jersey. The company conceded that it is legally responsible for the site and that chromium is both a solid and hazardous waste under RCRA. Instead, it challenged the lower court's finding of an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. But the lower court's inadvertent legal error with respect to the higher requirements it applied was harmless, as plaintiffs were required to prove, and did prove, more than was needed, not less. And on the basis of all of the evidence, the imminent and substantial endangerment determination was not clearly erroneous. Nor did the lower court abuse its discretion in ordering the injunction requiring the excavation and removal of the contaminated waste. Given the severity of the contamination at the site and its other unique characteristics, precisely established in the evidence, the injunction was reasonably calculated, narrowly tailored, and thus necessary to remedy an established wrong. Further, the plaintiffs had standing.

[Prior decisions in this litigation are published at 26 ELR 21551 and 32 ELR 20561.]