## Facts

- Metacon Gun Club operated a 100-yard outdoor shooting range on a 137-acre property containing woods, wetlands, and floodplain areas near the Farmington River.
- Target shooting over many years deposited lead bullets and shot into an engineered earthen berm and surrounding soils.
- Plaintiffs (a preservation group, a member, and nearby homeowners) alleged lead contamination in soil, sediment, surface water, and groundwater, citing sampling that in some instances exceeded Connecticut regulatory criteria.
- Metacon disputed the extent and pathways of contamination and produced consultant evidence finding no lead contamination of groundwater or surface water.
- Metacon did not have a RCRA hazardous-waste treatment/storage/disposal permit and did not have a Clean Water Act NPDES permit.
- After suit began, Metacon implemented an Environmental Stewardship Plan providing for cleanup and eventual berm mining to remove accumulated lead.

## Issues

1. Whether spent lead munitions deposited during ordinary range use are “discarded material” constituting “solid waste” (and potentially “hazardous waste”) triggering RCRA hazardous-waste permitting requirements.
2. Whether the accumulation and handling of lead at the range “may present an imminent and substantial endangerment” under RCRA citizen-suit authority.
3. Whether alleged lead migration from the range constitutes an unpermitted Clean Water Act discharge of a pollutant from a “point source” to “navigable waters.”

## Decision

- The Second Circuit affirmed dismissal of the RCRA hazardous-waste permitting claim for failure to state a claim.
- The Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Metacon on the RCRA open-dumping claim.
- The Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Metacon on the RCRA imminent-and-substantial-endangerment claim.
- The Second Circuit affirmed summary judgment for Metacon on the Clean Water Act unpermitted-discharge claim, including on alternative grounds where applicable.

## Legal Principles

- RCRA hazardous-waste permitting depends on whether the material at issue qualifies as “solid waste,” which requires “discarded material,” not merely a product used for its intended purpose.
- Fired ammunition at a shooting range is not automatically “discarded” for RCRA purposes; plaintiffs must plausibly allege conduct that fits RCRA “treatment, storage, or disposal” of solid or hazardous waste.
- RCRA “imminent and substantial endangerment” requires evidence of a credible, non-speculative threat of serious harm; elevated contaminant measurements alone may be insufficient without proof of meaningful exposure pathways and likely consequences.
- RCRA open-dumping claims require showing regulated solid waste and violation of applicable statutory or regulatory criteria; ordinary shooting activity, without more, does not establish operation of an illegal dump.
- Clean Water Act NPDES liability requires an “addition” of a pollutant to navigable waters “from a point source”; diffuse migration through soils, groundwater, or generalized runoff does not satisfy the point-source element absent a discrete conveyance.

## Conclusion

The Second Circuit rejected citizen-suit claims seeking to treat lead from ordinary range operations as RCRA-regulated hazardous waste and held that plaintiffs’ record did not support either an imminent-and-substantial-endangerment finding under RCRA or an unpermitted point-source discharge under the Clean Water Act.


Cordiano v. Metacon Gun Club, Inc., 575 F.3d 199 (2d Cir. 2009)