## Facts

- Remington owned and operated a trap-and-skeet club at Lordship Point in Stratford, Connecticut, from 1945; shooting activity at the site dated to the 1920s and served tens of thousands of patrons annually.
- Over decades, large quantities of lead shot and clay target fragments accumulated on land and in adjacent Long Island Sound waters.
- A nearby state wildlife refuge supported significant waterfowl habitat, and state investigations found elevated lead levels in sediments and biota near the site.
- The Connecticut environmental agency issued administrative orders requiring investigation and remediation; Remington conducted studies and proposed cleanup plans, but no removal had occurred by the time suit was filed.
- A fishermen’s association filed a citizen suit seeking injunctive relief under:
  - RCRA, alleging past or present handling/disposal of solid or hazardous waste that may present an imminent and substantial endangerment.
  - The Clean Water Act, alleging unpermitted discharges of pollutants to navigable waters without an NPDES permit.
- The district court dismissed the CWA claims for lack of citizen-suit jurisdiction and ruled on summary judgment that the lead shot and clay targets were “solid waste” under RCRA; it found lead shot “hazardous waste” for purposes of the imminent-hazard claim and left hazardousness of the clay targets for further factfinding.

## Issues

1. Whether spent lead shot and clay target fragments deposited in the environment constitute “solid waste” for a RCRA citizen suit alleging imminent and substantial endangerment under 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B).
2. Whether the lead shot and clay targets qualify as “hazardous waste” for purposes of § 6972(a)(1)(B), and what showing satisfies “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment.”
3. Whether a CWA citizen suit can proceed when the alleged discharges ceased before filing and when the state is pursuing enforcement under comparable state law.

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed that the accumulated spent lead shot and clay target fragments were “solid waste” for purposes of a RCRA imminent-hazard citizen suit.
- The court agreed that lead shot could be treated as “hazardous waste” within § 6972(a)(1)(B)’s imminent-hazard framework, while leaving the clay-target hazardousness question for further proceedings due to factual disputes.
- The court affirmed dismissal of the CWA citizen-suit claims because the alleged violations were wholly past when suit was filed and, independently, because the state’s enforcement efforts triggered the diligent-prosecution bar.
- Disposition: affirmed in part and reversed in part on RCRA-related rulings; affirmed dismissal of the CWA claims.

## Legal Principles

- For RCRA § 6972(a)(1)(B) imminent-hazard suits, “solid waste” is interpreted under the statute’s definition of “discarded material,” which can be broader than the regulatory definition used for Subtitle C hazardous-waste management.
- Materials that are useful at the moment of use may become “discarded” once abandoned and allowed to accumulate in the environment without retrieval or reuse.
- The “imminent and substantial endangerment” standard in § 6972(a)(1)(B) is preventive; a reasonable prospect of serious future harm can suffice without proof of actual harm or a current emergency.
- Evidence of toxicity, environmental mobility, and exposure pathways (e.g., leaching or ingestion by wildlife) can support treating a substance as hazardous within the imminent-hazard claim, even if regulatory listings/characteristics do not squarely control the analysis.
- Clean Water Act citizen suits require an ongoing or intermittent violation at the time of filing; wholly past violations are not actionable.
- A CWA citizen suit is barred when the state has commenced and is diligently prosecuting enforcement under state law comparable to the CWA.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit held that long-accumulated spent lead shot and clay target debris could constitute “solid waste” actionable under RCRA’s imminent-hazard citizen-suit provision, while affirming that Clean Water Act citizen-suit jurisdiction was unavailable absent an ongoing violation and in light of the state’s diligent enforcement efforts.


Conn. Coastal Fishermen’s Ass’n v. Remington Arms Co., 989 F.2d 1305 (2d Cir. 1993)