9th Circuit Broadly Interprets RCRA In Determining 'Transporter' Liability

摘要

In a split decision, a federal appeals court in California has reversed a lower court ruling and found that a party can be held liable as a "transporter" of solid waste under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) even if it did not play a role in discarding the waste and inadvertently took it up through its water supply system. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 9th Circuit ruled Sept. 29 that environmentalists sufficiently raised "triable" issues related to hexavalent chromium being discarded material and therefore solid waste, and a city acting as a transporter of that waste through its water-distribution system.