Rafael Rivera Yankovich

Rafael Rivera-Yankovich is a founding shareholder and director at TCM, where he focuses on environmental, energy, natural resources, and land-use law. 

Mr. Rivera-Yankovich counsels clients on federal and Puerto Rico environmental, natural-resources, and land-use/planning laws and regulations, including agency enforcement. His primary concentrations include Clean Water Act matters; NPDES permitting; wetlands; oil-spill response; PRASA connections and industrial wastewater permits; maritime-terrestrial and coastal-zone issues; U.S. Army Corps of Engineers permitting; hazardous (RCRA) and non-hazardous wastes; landfills and transfer stations; transportation matters before the U.S. DOT and Puerto Rico’s NTSP; land-use and planning before OGPe/JP; EPCRA; Superfund/CERCLA and brownfields; water-extraction rights and franchises; UIC; UST/AST compliance; and fire-prevention requirements. 

He represents clients in administrative and judicial enforcement actions and hearings before the U.S. EPA, U.S. Department of Justice, PRASA, U.S. Coast Guard, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Puerto Rico’s Department of Natural and Environmental Resources (DNER), the Bureau of Transportation and Other Public Services (NTSP) (formerly the Public Service Commission), the Office of Permits Management/Planning Board (OGPe/JP), and the Occupational Safety and Health division of the Puerto Rico Department of Labor and Human Resources. 

Representative litigation includes RCRA/CERCLA/Superfund/Successor Liability matters (e.g., United States v. Astur Metals; Scorpio Recycling; Scrapyard Metals; In the Matter of Scorpio, EPA ID: PRD987376662 (2008)); NPDES/Clean Water Act cases (e.g., United States v. Cemex Concretos, No. 14-1386 (D.P.R. 2014); United States v. Total Petroleum, No. 3:16-cv-02641 (D.P.R. 2016)); and RCRA/Solid Waste/Coal Combustion Residuals litigation (e.g., Peñuelas Valley Landfill v. J.M. Díaz, et al. and Comité Pro-Salud, Desarrollo y Ambiente de Tallaboa, Inc., PR Court of First Instance, Ponce, No. JPE-2015-0423; Municipio Autónomo de Peñuelas v. Ecosystems, T.S.P.R. CC-2015-0325; T.A. KLAN 2014-01700; T.P.I. JPE-2014-0457) (amicus curiae for Peñuelas Valley Landfill and El Coquí Landfill). He also participated in United States v. PRIDCO v. Compro Computer Services, Inc., Beckman Coulter, Filtertek, et al., No. 15-02328 (D.P.R.) (judgment 2024). 

Mr. Rivera-Yankovich’s government and legislative work includes monitoring legislation and rulemaking, drafting bills and regulatory amendments, and providing comments and testimony in administrative and legislative hearings. His contributions have supported incentives for environmental-remediation projects; amendments to Puerto Rico’s Pharmacy Act benefiting the medical-gas industry; PRASA pretreatment flexibility; DNER water-franchise matters; property-tax amnesty measures; maritime-terrestrial-zone clarifications; and refinements to EPA NPDES MSGPs, among others. 

He served as the lead consultant for Puerto Rico’s first brownfields-redevelopment and voluntary environmental cleanup statute. He is also the author and in-state consultant for the Puerto Rico chapters of LEXIS/Mathew Bender’s Brownfields Law and Practice (The Cleanup and Redevelopment of Contaminated Land) and the Environmental Law Practice Guide, and is a frequent lecturer on federal and Puerto Rico environmental laws and regulations.