## Facts

- Residents near the Barrio Guanajibo Industrial Park in Mayagüez, Puerto Rico, and a community health group sued PRASA and several industrial firms.
- Factories discharged waste into a privately owned industrial sewer line that connected to PRASA’s public sewer line and then to a PRASA-operated publicly owned treatment plant; the system carried only industrial-park waste.
- Plaintiffs alleged the sewer lines leaked and emitted fumes, creating an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.
- Plaintiffs also alleged failures to obtain permits and maintain records required for hazardous waste management under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).
- The dispute turned on RCRA’s definition of “solid waste,” which excludes “domestic sewage” and certain mixtures that pass through a publicly owned treatment works.

## Issues

1. Whether RCRA’s domestic sewage exclusion removes from RCRA coverage industrial wastes mixed with domestic sewage and transported to or through a publicly owned treatment works, thereby barring a citizen suit alleging imminent and substantial endangerment from leaks and fumes.

## Decision

- The First Circuit reversed the dismissal and remanded.
- The court held the domestic sewage exclusion does not categorically exempt industrial wastes from RCRA merely because they are mixed with restroom-type sewage in a sewer system connected to a publicly owned treatment works.
- The court concluded the district court’s reading was overly broad and would significantly diminish RCRA’s reach in situations involving hazardous industrial wastes and dangerous conditions associated with sewer transport and leakage.

## Legal Principles

- RCRA’s citizen-suit provision authorizes injunctive relief against any person contributing to the handling, storage, treatment, transportation, or disposal of any solid or hazardous waste that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment.
- The “domestic sewage” exclusion in RCRA’s definition of “solid waste” is a limited exception that must be construed in statutory context, not in a manner that defeats regulation of hazardous industrial waste.
- Avoiding duplicative regulation with the Clean Water Act explains excluding ordinary domestic sewage treated by publicly owned treatment works, but it does not immunize hazardous industrial wastes or dangerous conditions arising from sewer conveyance (including leaks and emissions).
- RCRA and the Clean Water Act operate concurrently; the existence of sewer-related Clean Water Act controls does not necessarily foreclose RCRA remedies for endangerment conditions tied to hazardous waste handling and transport.

## Conclusion

The First Circuit held that the presence of domestic sewage in a sewer system does not automatically place mixed industrial wastes outside RCRA, reinstating a citizen suit alleging imminent endangerment from industrial sewer leaks and fumes and sending the case back for further proceedings.


Comité Pro Rescate de la Salud v. P.R. Aqueduct & Sewer Auth., 888 F.2d 180 (1st Cir. 1989)