## Facts

- Allen Elias owned Evergreen Resources, a fertilizer business in Idaho, and brought to the site a 25,000-gallon stationary tank previously used in a cyanide leaching operation.
- Elias knew the prior process left substantial cyanide-contaminated sludge in the tank and admitted that one to two tons of cyanide-laced sludge remained when the tank was moved.
- In August 1996, intending to use the tank for sulfuric acid, Elias directed employees to enter the tank and wash out hardened sludge through an opening.
- Employees requested safety equipment but were not provided any; after entering in ordinary work clothes, workers reported throat and nasal irritation.
- The next day, employees again entered the tank and continued sludge removal; one worker, Scott Dominguez, collapsed inside.
- Emergency responders extracted Dominguez in severe respiratory distress; Elias told the fire chief and treating physician he knew only of “mud and water,” despite his prior knowledge of cyanide contamination.
- Dominguez was treated for cyanide poisoning and improved; later blood tests showed extremely toxic cyanide levels.
- Investigators collected sludge samples from outside the tank and several feet inside; tests were positive for cyanide, and the material was treated as hazardous waste under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA).

## Issues

1. Whether the evidence was sufficient to prove that the sludge constituted “hazardous waste” under RCRA when the government relied on samples from limited locations rather than proof of the average composition of the entire tank contents.
2. Whether the evidence was sufficient to support the RCRA “knowing endangerment” conviction, including proof that Elias knew his conduct placed another person in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.
3. Whether the court should defer to the Environmental Protection Agency’s reasonable interpretations of ambiguous RCRA statutory and regulatory terms relevant to the prosecution.

## Decision

- The Ninth Circuit affirmed Elias’s convictions, including the RCRA knowing-endangerment conviction under 42 U.S.C. § 6928(e).
- The court held the evidence permitted a rational jury to find beyond a reasonable doubt that the cyanide-contaminated sludge was hazardous waste and that Elias disposed of it without a permit.
- The court rejected the argument that the government had to prove its samples represented the average characteristics of the entire tank; it treated the sampling dispute as a jury weight question, not a failure of proof.
- The court held the evidence supported findings that Elias knew of the cyanide-contaminated sludge, nevertheless sent workers into a confined space without protection, and thereby knowingly placed a person in imminent danger.
- The court accepted the use of EPA’s reasonable interpretations of relevant RCRA terms in assessing the statutory and regulatory requirements.

## Legal Principles

- In a RCRA prosecution, hazardous-waste status may be proven through sampling evidence combined with circumstantial proof such as process history, defendant admissions, and expert and medical evidence; statistical proof that samples represent the average properties of the entire waste mass is not required for sufficiency.
- For RCRA “knowing endangerment” under 42 U.S.C. § 6928(e), evidence of the defendant’s awareness of contamination, direction of unprotected work in a hazardous confined-space setting, and conduct showing disregard of risk can support a finding that the defendant knew the conduct placed another in imminent danger of death or serious bodily injury.
- When RCRA statutory or regulatory terms are ambiguous, courts defer to EPA’s reasonable interpretations in applying the regulatory scheme in criminal enforcement.

## Conclusion

The Ninth Circuit upheld Elias’s RCRA convictions, concluding that limited-location cyanide sampling corroborated by admissions and medical and expert proof was sufficient to establish hazardous waste and that the record supported the jury’s finding of knowing endangerment, while deferring to EPA’s reasonable interpretations of relevant RCRA terms.


United States v. Elias, 269 F.3d 1003 (9th Cir. 2001)