## Facts

- Pennsylvania Industrial Chemical Corporation (PICCO) operated a chemical facility on the Monongahela River, a navigable waterway.
- The United States filed a criminal information alleging that, on four occasions in August 1970, PICCO discharged industrial refuse into the river in violation of § 13 of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 (the Refuse Act), 33 U.S.C. § 407.
- PICCO sought to introduce evidence that it relied on longstanding U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regulations and enforcement practices treating § 13 as directed at deposits that impede or obstruct navigation, not general water pollution.
- The district court excluded PICCO’s reliance evidence, held a bench trial, and convicted PICCO.
- The Third Circuit reversed, reasoning that § 13 did not apply absent formalized permit procedures or, alternatively, that PICCO should have been allowed to show it was affirmatively misled by the Corps’ regulatory position.

## Issues

1. Whether § 13 authorizes criminal prosecution for discharges of industrial pollutants into navigable waters even if the Secretary of the Army has not implemented a comprehensive permit program.
2. Whether due process permits a defendant to assert a fair-warning defense based on reasonable reliance on the Corps of Engineers’ longstanding, narrower administrative interpretation of § 13.

## Decision

- The Supreme Court held that § 13’s prohibitions apply regardless of whether a formal permit program exists; the statute authorizes permits but does not condition liability on their implementation.
- The Court held that § 13 reaches pollutant discharges generally and is not limited to refuse that obstructs navigation.
- The Court also held that the Corps’ consistent, narrower regulatory practice could have deprived PICCO of fair warning that its conduct was criminal.
- The Court modified the Third Circuit’s judgment and remanded for further proceedings so PICCO could present evidence supporting a fair-warning/reliance defense.

## Legal Principles

- Statutory text barring discharge of “any refuse matter of any kind or description whatever” into navigable waters (subject to the sewage exception) covers industrial pollutant discharges and is not confined to navigation obstructions.
- An agency’s failure to establish a comprehensive permit system under an authorizing statute does not, by itself, limit the statute’s prohibitory scope or bar criminal enforcement.
- Later water-quality legislation does not impliedly suspend or narrow § 13’s prohibitions absent clear congressional intent.
- Due process in criminal cases may require fair warning; longstanding agency regulations and enforcement practices may be relevant to whether a regulated party reasonably understood conduct to be criminally prohibited.
- A defendant may be entitled to present evidence that it reasonably relied on an authoritative, consistent administrative construction that indicated the charged conduct was outside the statute’s criminal reach.

## Conclusion

The Court confirmed that the Refuse Act broadly prohibits industrial pollutant discharges into navigable waters even without a formal permit program, but it required a remand because agency practice restricting enforcement to navigation-related obstructions could support a due process fair-warning defense.


United States v. Pennsylvania Indus. Chem. Corp., 411 U.S. 655 (1973)