Law and the Environment : Environmental Lawyer & Attorney : Foley Hoag Law Firm : Boston, Washington D.C.

Last week, MassDEP finally issued its long-awaited vapor intrusion guidance. Including appendices, it is 148 pages. There is a separate 52-page response to comments on the draft guidance. MassDEP has certainly learned that guidance must at least be described as guidance. The disclaimer runs a full page, and includes the following text:

MassDEP generally does not intend the guidance to be overly prescriptive. Use of such words as “shall,” “must,” or “require,” however, indicates that the text is referring to a specific regulatory and/or statutory requirement, rather than a suggested approach and/or optional measure. Use of the words “should” or “recommend” indicates aspects of a method or approach that are considered appropriate and protective, based on MassDEP’s experience and/or sound technical practices, but do not correspond to a specific regulatory and/or statutory requirement.

The guidance is not a regulation, rule or requirement, and should not be construed as mandatory. Accordingly, this document does not create any substantive or procedural rights, and is not enforceable by any party in any administrative proceeding with the Commonwealth.

My take? 

I was tempted to say “trust, but verify.” However, to be honest, I think I have to say instead, “I’ll believe it when I see it.”

For example, one of the most contentious issues has been how to address potential future vapor intrusion issues when there is currently no building on the site and there are no current plans for a specific building. MassDEP has created a three-tiered approach. Owners of property in Category A, with concentrations below GW-2 standards (GW-2 standards, for readers who are not MCP aficionados, are specifically designed to protect against indoor air exposures), need take no additional precautions prior to building. Owners of Category B sites, with concentrations greater than GW-2 standards, but less than 10 times the GW-2 standards, “should” include the installation of a vapor barrier and an active sub-slab depressurization, or SSD, system. Sites with concentrations greater than 10 times the GW-2 standard will be in Category C.  Buildings on these sites “would be constructed with a vapor barrier and active SSD system” and the site “should” be sampled over a two-year period. 

Don't you just love the artful use of the passive voice here?  Who the heck is actually building the buildings?  Perhaps the the vapor barrier and SSD will build themselves.

Is this a rule or guidance? Time will tell. My prediction? The first time MassDEP varies from its “shoulds” and “woulds” will be one more time than I expect will ever happen. The street-level bureaucracy at MassDEP is still the law west of the Pecos – or at least east of the New York border – and I do not foresee much flexibility. I would be pleased to be wrong.

(And good luck and best wishes to former Foley lawyer Ben Ericson, now Assistant Commissioner for Waste Site Cleanup, as he tries to implement this guidance -- as guidance.)

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In New York State Superfund Coalition, Inc., v. New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, the highest court in New York recently put its own gloss on the long-standing environmental issue of "How Clean is Clean". There, the court held that, even though liability for cleanup under New York’s state Superfund statute is triggered when there is a “significant threat” to the environment, the state has authority to promulgate regulations requiring cleanup beyond what would be necessary to eliminate that significant threat.  Specifically, the Court affirmed regulations that require cleanup to "pre-disposal conditions, to the extent feasible". 

The court reached this result by a definitional sleight-of-hand. The court noted that the statute seeks "a complete cleanup of the site through the elimination of the significant threat to the environment posed by the disposal of hazardous wastes at the site." The court then goes on to claim that the statutory standard of a "complete cleanup" to eliminate threats is the same as the regulatory standard of returning the site to “pre-disposal conditions, to the extent feasible”. 

Although the Court of Appeals gets the last word on this issue, its reasoning seems disingenuous.  The statutory standard defines cleanups to be the elimination of significant threats, meaning that a liable party could potentially leave some contamination at a site as long as that contamination did not pose a threat. The regulatory standard, in stark contrast, contemplates the removal of all contamination, whether causing a threat or not, constrained only by whether such removal was “feasible”.  Although the Court of Appeals professes to find no difference in the verbal formulations of these two standards, parties having to undertake cleanups in New York may find the difference to be many millions of dollars.  One can argue whether it is a wise decision to expend societal resources to restore disposal sites back to the condition of the Garden of Eden.  However, it's harder to argue that that decision should be made by courts and regulatory agencies instead of by the legislature.

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Some of the world's most well-known apparel companies have come under criticism from Greenpeace for not sufficiently monitoring and limiting industrial wastewater discharges by suppliers.  In a new report called "Dirty Laundry", Greenpeace highlights the wastewater discharges from two major manufacturers in China that supply products to a range of major brands -- including Adidas, Bauer Hockey, Calvin Klein, Converse, Lacoste, Nike, Phillips-Van Heusen and Puma.  

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As much as I’ve always found EPA’s use of unilateral administrative orders under Section 106 of CERCLA to be offensive, I still expected EPA’s authority to withstand challenge. As I noted previously, not every law that is unfair is unconstitutional. At least for now, the issue has probably been laid to rest. Yesterday, the Supreme Court denied GE’s petition for certiorari seeking to appeal the D.C. Circuit’s rejection of its claim that EPA’s exercise of its unilateral order authority is unconstitutional. 

CERCLA has been constitutional for almost as long as Francisco Franco has been dead – and they’re both likely to remain that way.

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As I have previously mentioned, EPA is considering including criteria related to vapor intrusion (VI) in the hazard ranking system scoring used to determine which sites should be added to the National Priorities List. As I noted when this first became news, it’s pretty much an obvious step for EPA to take. These are precisely the types of sites on which EPA should be focusing. At a certain level, I’d be happy – relatively – if EPA limited CERCLA to sites imposing threats to public water supplies and sites posing VI problems, and jettisoned everything else. 

The National Association of Manufacturers and the Aerospace Industries Association have now sent EPA a letter opposing inclusion of VI as a criterion for HRS scoring. The basis for their opposition is curious. It’s not that VI sites aren’t a problem. It’s that VI sites are a problem – but that CERCLA is not the right vehicle to address VI, because CERCLA cleanups take too long. 

NAM and AIA are right, of course. CERCLA decisions take forever. While NAM and AIA don’t point out the irony, it’s got to be uncomfortable for EPA that the principal federal program to clean up contaminated properties is not well-suited to address what is arguably the most significant health risk from the existence of contaminated properties.

Why should this be so? Could it be because CERCLA is the last bastion of almost totally pure command and control regulation? Might CERCLA remedy decisions take less time if EPA did not have to select remedies, but instead only identified appropriate cleanup standards and let PRPs select the remedy? Might cleanups get implemented faster if the PRPs’ obligation was simply to meet cleanup standards and provide sufficient information to EPA or 3^rd party auditors to demonstrate that the cleanup standards have in fact been met? 

Oh, and, by the way, in these troubled budget times, might EPA be able to oversee the CERCLA program with about ¼ of its current staff if it set cleanup standards and got out of the way, rather than micromanaging every element of every cleanup?

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Recently, I expressed concern that District Courts, which traditionally have never seen a CERCLA plaintiff they didn’t like, would ignore the Supreme Court’s Burlington Northern decision – at least until there is another Supreme Court decision affirming that Supremes really meant the two-part holding in Burlington Northern: (1) divisibility isn’t that hard and (2) parties aren’t liable as arrangers unless they actually intended to dispose of hazardous material. 

Although it shouldn’t be earthshaking, I was therefore encouraged to see last week’s decision in Schiavone v. Northeast Utilities Service Company. In Schiavone, the defendants sold used transformers to a scrap yard. Their policy was to drain the transformers before sale. The Court concluded that there remained a material dispute whether the defendants sent PCB-containing transformers to the site. Nonetheless, the Court granted the defendants’ motion for summary judgment on the ground that there was no evidence that the defendants intended to dispose of PCBs. Citing to Burlington Northern, the Court stated that:

The defendants’ specific intent to dispose of the transformers themselves is not enough to make them “arrangers” under § 9607(a), even if the defendants had knowledge that oil was in the used transformers when they sold them…. The plaintiffs have produced no evidence that could support a conclusion that the defendants had as a purpose in their dealings with [the scrap yard] disposing of transformer oil containing PCBs.  Consequently, the plaintiffs have not created a genuine issue of material fact as to whether the defendants arranged for the disposal of a hazardous substance.

Sometimes, justice does triumph. I am hopeful that arranger cases where the defendant wasn’t actually intending to dispose of hazardous substances will start to fade away. I remain less optimistic about the divisibility side of Burlington Northern, but one can always hope.

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In an interesting decision issued earlier this month, Judge Lewis Babcock of the District of Colorado ruled, in County of La Plata v. Brown Group Retail, that detection of contamination at levels exceeding state cleanup standards does not, by itself constitute an imminent and substantial endangerment under RCRA. I think that Judge Babcock is correct, but I can’t help but feel that the decision might be different in the blue state of Massachusetts. I was particularly taken by Judge Babcock’s description of the nature and purpose of state regulatory standards:

Regulatory screening levels, action levels, and standards do not identify real or actual risks to human health. Rather, these regulations are designed to protect the public health by identifying the level of chemical exposure at which there is no threat of harm with a large margin of error. Exceedance of regulatory screening levels, action levels, or standards therefore does not demonstrate a real or actual risk to human health.

Tell it to MassDEP.

I think it’s wonderful that a federal judge has said that “regulatory … standards do not identify real or actual risks to human health.” He’s right, of course, and we often forget that when conservative assumption is piled on top of conservative assumption in the establishment of a standard, the standard may end up having only the most tenuous connection to any actual concern about human health.

I wish I could make equally kind statements about Judge Babcock’s handling of the CERCLA claims in the same case. Like many judges implementing the Supreme Court’s decision in Burlington Northern, Judge Babcock shrugged off the defendant’s divisibility arguments, notwithstanding that the arguments the defendant made were well within the ambit of the types of considerations the Supreme Court said were relevant in Burlington Northern. I feel we are destined to continue the cycle of lower court decisions which simple-mindedly whack the defendant, followed every few years by a Supreme Court decision that says fairly simply: No, that’s not the way it’s supposed to be.

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In late 2009, Judge Griesbach ruled, in Appleton Papers v. George A. Whiting Paper, that parties who were significantly more “blameworthy” than others were not entitled to contribution from the less blameworthy parties. Last week, Judge Griesbach ruled on the cross-contribution motions from the defendants. 

The defendants took a simple view. If the plaintiffs are not entitled to contribution from the defendants, because the plaintiffs were almost entirely at fault, then the defendants should be able to receive 100% of their own response costs in contribution from the plaintiffs. Plaintiffs, not surprisingly, took a contrary view. Plaintiffs' position was that the court still needed to assess the defendants’ contribution claims in light of the full panoply of equitable factors and that, because the plaintiffs had cooperated with the government and the defendants had caused some releases themselves, the plaintiffs should not have to pay 100% of defendants’ costs.

Judge Griesbach was having nothing of the plaintiffs’ arguments. To him, it remains really a simple analysis:

[C]ases reject the idea that a district court has to follow some sort of mechanical laundry-list approach to assessing contribution liability, and I am satisfied that basing contribution on fault, under the totality of the circumstances of this case, is a sound approach to resolving the liability for the river cleanup.

I remain of the view that, while the outcome of the case is permissible, it is a surprise that the judge was so willing to make these decisions on summary judgment; they seem more the stuff of trial to me. However, the judge’s willingness to decide this case on summary judgment only emphasizes the important lessons of this case. Fault matters, and the parties who succeed in tarring other parties with the label of “fault” are going to be the big winners in contribution cases – Gore Factors be damned.

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Vapor intrusion is the issue de jour at federal and state Superfund sites. On the federal side, EPA announced in January that it was considering adding vapor intrusion criteria to its calculation of hazard ranking scores. Frankly, as a concept, it’s hard to dispute. In fact, aside from when actual public water supplies are contaminated, indoor air is probably about the only risk associated with Superfund sites that we should care about. Every analysis EPA has ever done has shown that risks associated with Superfund sites are otherwise overestimated and it is not a cost-effective place to be putting environmental protection dollars. The question of course is how to go about regulating indoor air.

MassDEP is attempting to answer this question at the state level as we speak. In December, MassDEP released its draft vapor intrusion guidance document. The Guidance, including appendices, totals 142 pages and 2.2 MB of pdf files. You probably know where I’m headed with this. How can any set of documents that long be appropriate for guidance, you may ask. Like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, I’ll tell you. I don’t know.

Today, NAIOP provided MassDEP with 54 single-spaced pages of comments on the draft guidance. Kudos to NAIOP’s 21E Committee, and particularly Ned Abelson, for truly herculean efforts in putting together these comments. The problems I identify below are all described in detail in the NAIOP comments.

There are many substantive issues with the Guidance. Here are two high-level ones:

It would be another step away from the risk-based program that Massachusetts pioneered almost 20 years ago. Whatever MassDEP officials may say, there’s a lot of evidence that those actually running the program simply don’t trust the privatized risk-based system that has been such a success.

The Guidance will make it very difficult for sites with even potential VI issues to achieve regulatory closure. The difficulty in obtaining closure will, in turn, discourage brownfields redevelopers from pursuing VI sites. The disincentive will, in turn, mean that fewer sites will actually be cleaned up. How will that achieve MassDEP’s goals?

In any case, how can this possibly be implemented as guidance? Simply put, anyone who thinks that the Guidance will not be rigidly implemented by MassDEP is delusional. My favorite discussion of this issue is contained in the 2000 Appalachian Power decision. In dismissing EPA’s contention that the guidance document at issue in that case was not binding, the Court said this in response to EPA’s reference to its boilerplate statement that the guidance created no rights: 

“[R]ights” may not be created but “obligations” certainly are…. The entire Guidance, from beginning to end – except the last paragraph – reads like a ukase.

Here’s just one example, to wrap up an already overly-long post. In determining whether basements should be evaluated for VI purposes as living spaces, the Guidance provides that “any basement with at least seven feet of head room in an occupied residential dwelling should be considered a living space.” What’s the likelihood that any street-level bureaucrat at MassDEP will ever allow any basement with at least seven feet of headspace to be considered as anything other than a living space? 

Sounds like a rule to me. Sounds like regulation – not guidance. 

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Two recent decision illustrate that PRPs do hold some cards in hazardous waste litigation, particularly if they are willing to be aggressive in investigating the contamination. Both cases demonstrate that “victims” or bystanders can face serious consequences if they do not cooperate with the investigation.

In Carlson v. Ameren Corporation, the plaintiffs had purchased a former manufactured gas plant from Ameren Corporation. They brought suit under RCRA, seeking an injunction requiring that Ameren remediate the property. Ameren filed counterclaims against the Carlsons, alleging that they had refused to cooperate with the cleanup. The question was whether such a lack of cooperation could constitute proof that the owner was “contributing to or has contributed to the handling” of the solid or hazardous waste at issue in the case. The 7^th Circuit rule requires “active involvement in handling or storing of materials.” Denying the plaintiffs' motion to dismiss the counterclaim, the court concluded that “obstruction may be construed as active storage of materials.” 

The Carlsons prevented Ameren from accessing and repairing the land. Furthermore, as a result of their affirmative action in obstructing the repair of the land, the Carlsons are allegedly permitting the continued leaching of hazardous material into the land. As a result, the Carlson’s [sic] may be said to be actively contributing to the condition of the Property.

Voggenthaler v. Maryland Square presents a different situation, but reinforces the lesson that even those probably not otherwise liable need to cooperate. In this case, downgradient property owners had sued a mall owner and a dry cleaner located at the mall, alleging contamination from a PCE release at the dry cleaner. The defendants were clearly liable, but were seeking other deep pockets to contribute to the cleanup. Another mall, the Boulevard Mall, was located across the highway from Maryland Square. That mall contained a Sears store and other automotive uses that could have used, and released, PCE. The original defendants filed a third-party complaint against the Boulevard Mall. They also filed a request for inspection under Rule 34 in order to implement environmental testing on the Boulevard Mall property, intended to provide evidence that there was a separate source of contamination affecting the plaintiffs. When Boulevard Mall refused, Maryland Square filed a motion to compel.

I’ll spare you all of the procedural details; the bottom line is that Magistrate Judge Foley, while acknowledging that the third party claims against Boulevard Mall were weak, allowed the motion to compel. The decision is worth reading and provides an interesting discussion of “fishing expeditions” versus “discovery of relevant and potentially admissible evidence.” In short, the Court refereed what might be called a preliminary battle of the experts and concluded that the Maryland Square expert had made - barely - enough of a case that the Boulevard Mall property might be a source of contamination to justify the testing. Interestingly, Magistrate Judge Foley said that, if he were deciding a summary judgment motion, he would have ruled that Maryland Square’s claims would not survive. However, under “a more lenient discovery standard,” he concluded that Maryland Square had “made a sufficient threshold factual showing to support the proposed testing. 

The lesson for known PRPs? Aggressive efforts to investigate contamination can be a useful sword in litigation. The lesson for others? If the PRPs are acting responsibly, you had better cooperate.

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It may be an apocryphal story, but my understanding as to why so many small municipal landfills in New Hampshire ended up on the NPL is that some bright light in the Granite State thought that Superfund was a public works program and that the fund would pay for the landfill closures. The result? Small towns became PRPs, responsible for Superfund response costs which, in some cases, approximated their annual municipal budget.

I recall going to a public meeting concerning EPA’s preferred alternative at one site. At most sites, the public pleads for EPA to require more cleanup – because someone else will be paying, of course. Here, the public was begging for less cleanup, because they thought that they had better ways to spend the money. Even if the money had to be devoted to public health and safety, they were confident that spending money on traffic lights and police and fire departments would yield a greater return.

I was reminded of this episode by EPA’s announcement last week of the release of guidance recommending the removal of PCB-containing light ballasts from schools. According to a report in the Wall Street Journal, New York City estimates that the cost to remove the ballasts will be $1 billion. Anyone think that NYC might have a better use for $1 billion in school spending?

There are really two points to this story. The first is that legislation in response to panics is not a good idea. The notion that there are special legislative provisions for PCBs, unlike the myriad of other toxic chemicals which are handled under provisions of general application is, to use a technical term, nuts. It has led to a separate PCB program within EPA which, in the bureaucratic nature of things, has to justify its existence, leading to costly recommendations such as those made last week.

Second, what if it really would be better to spend money on fire trucks, or traffic lights, or anti-drug programs in schools? To be fair to EPA, this is not a question the agency is tasked with answering. However, shouldn’t somebody be asking and answering such questions before regulations with such potential consequences are promulgated? 

This is not about cost-benefit analysis, which simply asks whether the benefit of the requirement is worth its costs. It’s not even cost-effectiveness analysis, at least as EPA normally thinks about it. Such analysis would normally only try to determine the most cost-effective way to eliminate PCBs. I’m after something deeper. Even after we’ve determined the most cost-effective way to eliminate PCBs from light ballasts, I want to know how much that would cost, how much risk reduction it would achieve, and whether more risk reduction could be obtained by spending the money elsewhere. 

I can dream, can’t I?

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Sometimes, good lawyering does matter. When DVL found PCBs on its property in Fort Edward, New York, and when it looked up and realized that GE had operated a manufacturing facility which utilized PCBs “almost adjacent” to DVL’s property, DVL and its attorneys may have thought that they had a slam dunk case on liability. Not so fast. Last week, in DVL v. General Electric, Judge Lawrence Kahn awarded GE summary judgment on liability, because DVL had failed to provide even enough evidence of GE’s liability to survive summary judgment. 

DVL did have more than just GE’s proximity on its side. The types of PCB Aroclors used by GE at its facility were the same as were found at the DVL property. There was contamination on GE’s property. However, GE denied disposing of its contamination on DVL’s property, DVL never saw any GE capacitors on its property, and groundwater wells installed by GE on DVL property to determine if contaminated groundwater had migrated off of GE’s property were non-detect for PCBs. 

Unfortunately for DVL, that was the limit of its evidence. It did obtain a declaration from James Ludlam, an employee of the New York Department of Environmental Conservation, who clearly is no fan of GE, and who stated that GE wastes were at the DVL property. However, DVL did not identify Mr. Ludlam as an expert and Mr. Ludlam had no personal knowledge that GE disposed of anything at the Site. Judge Kahn ruled that DVL was improperly trying to parlay a lay witness into an undisclosed expert witness and struck Mr. Ludlam’s declarations. 

Judge Kahn agreed that liability under CERCLA can be based solely on circumstantial evidence, “especially where the passage of time has made direct evidence difficult or impossible to obtain.” Nonetheless, he concluded that the circumstantial evidence proffered by DVL was not enough to establish its prima facie case. DVL’s case was basically that GE manufactured the types of PCBs found at the DVL property and that its historical disposal practices were, shall we say, messy. Judge Kahn concluded that this was not enough to establish that GE’s wastes had been disposed of at the DVL property. 

Evidence that merely “presents probabilities rather than proof,” “relies upon a collection of facts that could be summarized as ’if it is there, it must be theirs,’” or is “vague and imprecise, of questionable reliability, and therefore not sufficiently probative to create an issue for trial” is insufficient to hold a party liable under CERCLA. 

I think that the decision in DVL v. GE is probably correct. However, it’s hard not to be left with a nagging feeling that the PCBs probably were from the GE facility and that DVL was not well-served by its lawyers. DVL clearly did some looking, because they had a declaration from someone who used to play in the area.  However, were there really no former employees of GE or employees of any waste handlers of GE who could have testified? How about more sophisticated analytical work that would have not merely confirmed that the PCBs were the same Aroclors as used by GE, but were somehow fingerprinted as being the same as the PCBs found in the soil at the GE site? 

If this case stands for anything, it’s that the details matter; the actual evidence matters.

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As the holiday approaches, I am particularly thankful that I am not counsel to the Washington State DOT in United States v. Washington State DOT, a case that continues to make me want to take EPA, DOJ, and United States District Judge Robert Bryan by the neck and ask them what the heck are they thinking. 

In July, I posted about Judge Bryan’s decision holding that the Washington DOT “arranged” for the disposal of hazardous substances by designing and operating a highway drainage system that deposited highway runoff containing hazardous substances into what became the Commencement Bay Superfund Site. As I noted then, the logic of that decision is that every Clean Water Act stormwater problem is now potentially a Superfund claim and every highway department – and every private developer with a parking lot – potentially faces not just stormwater enforcement, but a Superfund cost recovery suit. 

Last week, Judge Bryan issued another decision regarding the DOT’s potential arranger liability. Although his earlier decision held that Washington DOT had arranged for the disposal of hazardous substances through the design of its highway drainage systems, the court had not actually found the DOT liable under § 107(a)(3) of CERCLA. The DOT argued that, even if it arranged for the disposal of hazardous substances, the United States hasn’t “established a connection between the hazardous substances found at the [DOT] Property and the response costs incurred at the [Superfund site].” 

Judge Bryan wasn’t buying it. Instead, Judge Bryan concluded that, where plaintiff can establish contamination at defendant’s property that is at least similar to contamination at the Superfund site, and can establish a “plausible migration pathway by which the contaminant could have traveled from the defendant’s facility to the plaintiff’s site,” plaintiff has met its burden. The burden then shifts to the defendant to create a genuine issue of fact regarding causation.

Judge Bryan further concluded that it is up to the trial court to determine when to consider divisibility and apportionment defenses, and noted that “it would be consistent with the purposes of CERCLA to first fix liability and then determine any divisibility/apportionment defense based on causation.”

In other words, design a stormwater drainage system that directs contamination towards an area that needs a cleanup, and you are in Superfund litigation up to your neck until the final verdict is rendered.

Thanks, but no thanks.

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As Superfund practitioners know, federal NPL sites are generally settled on the basis that the PRPs will first attain interim cleanup levels, though final cleanup levels are not determined until EPA is actually ready to issue its certification of completion of the remedy. Moreover, EPA insists that, should any ARARs change during the course of the cleanup, whatever standards are in effect at the time of site closure will be applied.

We saw the impact of this on the ground in 2001, when EPA revised the Safe Drinking Water Act maximum contaminant level, or MCL, for arsenic from 50 ppb to 10 ppb. The new MCL became an ARAR for Superfund, and the expected date to attain cleanup standards suddenly got pushed back at a number of Superfund sites.

Even at the time, it was not clear that 10 ppb was the last word. EPA’s proposed rule had provided for a 5 ppb standard, but EPA eased off in response to public comment; small water suppliers can have great difficulty in attaining a 5 ppb standard. 

Earlier this year, EPA announced the availability of a new toxicological review of arsenic. That review suggested greater cancer risks from arsenic. Yesterday, EPA’s Science Advisory Board issued a report generally supportive of the new toxicological review. If the result is a further tightening of the MCL, more stringent cleanups, through the ARARs process, will follow ineluctably. 

I don’t normally post about developments this far from concrete regulatory changes. However, given the way the Superfund cleanup process works, PRPs negotiating cleanups of sites with arsenic groundwater contamination have to begin to factor this issue into their strategy now, because it’s not too early to starting thinking about cleanup cost estimates for alternative - meaning lower - arsenic MCLs.

Having put you on notice, I now have to tell one war story; if you don’t feel the need for a war story, you can stop reading here. In 1991, I was involved in negotiating the settlement for the cleanup of the Coakley Landfill Site, in southern New Hampshire. The federal government was a PRP. In Coakley, the government made a substantial (seven figure) contribution to the settlement. However, because the private PRPs had argued in negotiations with EPA that there was no need to treat groundwater – notwithstanding that the ROD remedy selected by EPA required groundwater treatment – the federal government as PRP insisted on getting a refund of the share of its payment attributable to the groundwater remedy, should EPA finally certify completion of the remedy without there ever having been an active groundwater treatment system in operation.

A few years later, the PRPs indeed persuaded EPA to eliminate active groundwater treatment. At the time, the expected date for certification of completion was 2007. In 2001, EPA changed the arsenic MCL from 50 ppb to 10 ppb. I don’t need to tell you that there is an arsenic issue at the Coakley Site. Now, the expected date for certification of completion is 2021. If, before then, EPA were to further lower the arsenic MCL, who knows what will happen to the expected date for certification of completion? The private PRPs may never have to reimburse the federal government!

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One of the first lessons I learned as a summer associate, more years ago than I care to remember, is that the probability of a successful estoppel claim against the government is approximately the same as the probability that there is a Santa Claus. After the recent decision from the District of New Jersey in FMC Corporation v. American Cyanamid, the probability of a successful estoppel claim may still be low, but it isn’t zero. 

FMC involves claims concerning the Higgins Farm Superfund Site, in Franklin, New Jersey. According to the decision, FMC contacted the State of New Jersey in 2001 in order to obtain information concerning the scope of its potential liability. One of the questions involved natural resource damages. New Jersey determined that it would not assess NRD for the site and that conclusion was communicated by telephone to FMC in late 2002. As settlement negotiations continued, in 2003, New Jersey actually provided to FMC a copy of the memorandum that had been prepared documenting that no NRD would be assessed. 

The reason for the determination apparently was a NJDEP policy that, where no off-site groundwater contamination existed, no NRD would be assessed. However, that policy changed later in 2003, after a change in administration at NJDEP. Ultimately, in 2006, NJDEP filed suit against FMC seeking natural resource damages. In responding to FMC’s motion to dismiss, NJDEP made the argument most of us would expect:

the doctrine of waiver should not be applied under these circumstances [because] a government agency may change policies for the benefit for the public without creating rights in parties who claim to have relied on the old policy.

The Court wasn’t buying it. While acknowledging that “the application of waiver or estoppel principles to government actions is to be most strictly limited,” the Court concluded that New Jersey had expressly waived its right to recover NRD. It was significant to the Court that NJDEP did not qualify the waiver in any way. Given the absence of qualifying language, the Court concluded that to allow NJDEP to bring NRD claims after such an unqualified waiver “would serve to completely alter the calculus of the litigation and undermine settlement negotiations that parties engage in with the State.”

The biggest lesson of FMC will probably be for government attorneys – make sure you qualify your waivers. Nonetheless, it does suggest that, at least in the right case, the government will be held to its promises. 

Merry Christmas, FMC.

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My partner Robby Sanoff blogged last week about the “Illusion of Finality in CERCLA.” His post addressed City of Emeryville v. Sherwin-Williams, in which the 9^th Circuit Court of Appeals held that a person who was not a party to a prior settlement could bring a contribution claim against such a settling party, at least where the new claim involved contamination at a downgradient property, rather than the property that was the subject of the first settlement.

City of Emeryville seems to have been rightly decided. The only real lesson it teaches is that a PRP who wants to settle and achieve finality must do everything possible to ensure that all potentially liable parties are brought to the table and that the site is properly defined.

However, a case from earlier this summer just came to my attention. Its lesson is different. Its lesson is that CERCLA is just plain nuts, and judges’ efforts to harmonize its decisions can do more harm than good. Ashland v. Gar Electroplating teaches that there is no finality under CERCLA and that parties who step up to the plate to settle with the government and perform cleanups can be subject to joint and several cost recovery claims brought by recalcitrants. Alice in Wonderland, here we come.

Although Ashland seems wrong, Judge Lisi’s decision is a not surprising consequence of the simplistic CERCLA jurisprudence announced by Justice Thomas in Aviall and Atlantic Research. In holding that contribution claims are limited to those who have been the subject of litigation or certain kinds of settlements with the United States or a state, and that PRPs not subject to suits or administrative orders can bring cost recovery actions under § 107 of CERCLA, the Supreme Court has opened a Pandora’s Box.

What evil genie was loosed in Ashland? The facts are too complicated for a complete recital, but some history is required. Here goes:

1.                   The government sued a number of parties, including United Technologies, under CERCLA. The claims related to the Davis Liquid Waste Site, in Smithfield, Rhode Island.

2.                   The defendants brought third-party claims against a number of other PRPs, including Ashland.

3.                   Some original defendants (including this firm’s client, Ciba-Geigy) settled.

4.                   The United States went to trial against UT and obtained a finding of liability. UTC then settled with the government and agreed to perform a portion of the remedy. It also agreed to allocate sums recovered from the third-party defendants with the government.

5.                   A number of third-party defendants, not including Ashland, settled with UTC – and the government. 

6.                   The case against Ashland (and some other non-settlors) went to trial. Ashland was found liable. The judge allocated liability and imposed a percentage share on Ashland. 

7.                   At some point, EPA directly notified Ashland that it was a PRP and sent Ashland an administrative order on consent, requiring it to perform certain groundwater cleanup.

8.                   It is not clear if Ashland signed the AOC, but, according to an EPA affidavit, Ashland agreed to perform certain cleanup work.

9.                   Ashland spent approximately $2 million performing the work.

10.               It then brought claims under § 107 of CERCLA.  It had no contribution claim, because nothing had happened to bring Ashland under the ambit of § 113.

11.               The United States and the State of Rhode Island both filed amicus briefs on behalf of those sued by Ashland, arguing that their respective settlements with UTC barred Ashland’s claims.

Faced with these facts, what did Judge Lisi do? First, she found that Ashland does have a right to bring claims under § 107. Because it was not sued by the United States or Rhode Island, Ashland was not limited to contribution claims.

Second, Judge Lisi found that the allocation previously reached in the private action was not applicable to this case, precisely because the private case was for contribution and this case is a claim under § 107, which is assumedly one for joint and several liability. While Judge Lisi noted that the defendants in this action can bring counterclaims for contribution, the burden is on them to prove that the harm is divisible. 

As someone might say, OMG. Here’s what Justice Thomas has done to us. The recalcitrant party has a joint and several claim against those who settled with the government, and the burden is on the good guys to prove that liability should not be joint and several. 

If I may be permitted to gloat, I raised this specter following Aviall and Atlantic Research, and was generally told not to worry; the district courts would find ways to reach practical results. Plan B would seem to be the 1^st Circuit Court of Appeals. Plan C? I can’t wait to see what Justice Thomas would make of this fine mess.

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In City of Emeryville v. The Sherwin-Williams Company, the Ninth Circuit recently underscored that CERCLA settlements can be a risky business that don’t always produce finality, particularly when neither the United States nor a state is a party. 

The Ninth Circuit decision grew out of a federal court action by the City of Emeryville involving contamination at a manufacturing facility that had been operated by Sherwin-Williams. Sherwin-Williams settled that suit and obtained what it thought was broad protection against contribution claims based on contamination “at, on, under, and emanating from” the facility.

After Sherwin-Williams had performed its obligations under the settlement, the Emeryville Redevelopment Agency filed a lawsuit in state court involving contamination at a property adjacent to the former Sherwin-Williams facility. Sherwin-Williams was a defendant in that new action, as were the City of Emeryville and other parties who had not been involved in the federal court action. When the City of Emeryville and those other parties cross-claimed against Sherwin-Williams, Sherwin-Williams went back to federal court to enforce its settlement and its contribution protection. The District Court agreed with Sherwin-Williams and ruled that the settlement barred any claims in the state court action by the City of Emeryville and the other parties to the extent those claims were based on contamination migrating from the former Sherwin-Williams facility. 

On appeal, the Ninth Circuit agreed that claims by the City of Emeryville were barred but ruled that claims by the other parties who had not been included in the original federal action or who had not received notice of the settlement could not be precluded.   According to the Ninth Circuit, the broad contribution protection authorized by Section 113(f)(2) of CERCLA is triggered only when the settlement involves either the United States or a state and the City of Emeryville was not a state no matter how hard Sherwin-Williams claimed it was. The Ninth Circuit went on to hold that a federal court in approving a CERCLA settlement has authority to provide contribution protection but only with respect to parties who are PRPs with respect to the site that is the subject of the settlement.

Although it may seem like a harsh result for Sherwin-Williams, it’s hard to disagree with the reasoning of the Ninth Circuit.   While it is fair to hold the City of Emeryville to the deal it made and bar its contribution claims against Sherwin-Williams, it would be palpably unfair to bar claims by parties that did not participate in the original settlement, did not know of the settlement, and had no reason to know of it because they were not PRPs with respect to the former Sherwin-Williams facility. Whether or not the state court ultimately limits Sherwin-Williams’ liability for the adjacent property based on its undertakings in its settlement with the City of Emeryville, the lesson seems clear. Finality in Superfund settlements can be illusory, particularly where the settlement does not involve the federal or state government. 

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When clients are threatened with citizen suits – and particularly when the threatened litigation involves a matter where EPA or a state regulatory agency is heavily involved, the clients always want to know why they can’t somehow get rid of the citizen suit, given that EPA is on the case. The answer is that they can – but only in limited circumstances.

The recent decision in Little Hocking Water Association v. DuPont confirmed this answer in the context of RCRA. The Little Hocking Water Association provides public water to certain communities in Ohio, directly across the Ohio River from a DuPont plant which uses , also known as PFOA or C8 – also known as the contaminant du jour. According to the complaint, the Little Hocking wells have among the highest concentrations of C8 of water supply wells anywhere and its customers have among the highest C8 blood levels anywhere. Little Hocking Water Association thus sued DuPont under RCRA’s citizen suit provision, claiming that DuPont’s release of C8 had created an “imminent and substantial endangerment."

Section 7002 of RCRA contains provisions precluding such citizen suits if either EPA or a state “has commenced and is diligently prosecuting” an action under RCRA to abate the endangerment. In the DuPont case, releases of C8 from the DuPont facility had been the subject of at least two administrative orders on consent entered into by DuPont and EPA. However, consent orders aren’t the same as “an action” under § 7002 or § 7003 of RCRA – and they thus do not preclude a citizen suit.

DuPont tried the next best argument – that EPA had primary jurisdiction over the regulation of C8 – and that the existence of EPA’s regulatory authority and the issuance of the consent orders meant that the courts should defer to EPA. DuPont’s argument was that a court could not fashion a remedy in the case without essentially establishing a new cleanup standard for C8 and that doing so is the job of EPA, not the courts.

The Court gave the primary jurisdiction argument short shrift. As the Court noted, using the doctrine of primary jurisdiction in citizen suits would dramatically reduce the scope of such suits. Since Congress provided a citizen suit mechanism – and provided very specific, discrete, circumstances in which citizen suits are precluded – it doesn’t make sense to use primary jurisdiction to establish another defense, particularly where the defense would almost eliminate the remedy. 

The bottom line? If you don’t want to face a citizen suit (and you’re not in compliance), get yourself sued by EPA or your state regulatory agency. The mere existence of EPA or state regulation, even if requirements are embodied in a consent order, is not enough.

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There are only two permissible answers to this question:

1.                   Yes

2.                   I don’t know.

I was reminded of this reality in reading the decision issued earlier this month in Solutia v. McWane, in which Chief Magistrate Judge Greene of the Northern District of Alabama held that a party which incurs response costs pursuant to a consent decree or administrative order may not bring an action for cost recovery under § 107 of CERCLA and is instead limited to a contribution action under § 113 of CERCLA. 

For those of our readers who are either masochists or do Superfund law for a living and thus have to keep up with this stuff, the decision is worth reading; it’s a useful summary of the post-Atlantic Research, post-Aviall case law. At bottom, the decision is a reasonable, practical result. Why should the nature of a private party’s right of action depend on whether the party did the cleanup itself or instead reimbursed the government for costs incurred pursuant to a government-led cleanup?

I will say that it’s not obvious to me that the Supreme Court would agree, were it to hear the case, simply because the Supreme Court has appeared to be so fixated on the traditional common law understanding of the nature of contribution as the right of a contribution plaintiff to receive a payment from a third party defendant when the contribution plaintiff has paid to the original plaintiff more than its fair share of a common liability.  Direct response costs don’t fit neatly into that traditional contribution model. However, it's probably a moot point, because it is hard to picture this issue getting to the Supreme Court. I expect the justices to conclude that they’ve heard enough of these cases by now.

We’re still left with my original question. Why is it that 30 years after CERCLA was passed and 24 years after the SARA amendments, the nature of third party claims still isn’t clear? Because CERCLA is incomprehensible, that’s why.

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Product stewardship is definitely in vogue. The Daily Environment Report has just noted that the United State Conference of Mayors has adopted a resolution calling for “Extended Producer Responsibility For Products.” I understand the arguments in favor of product stewardship. From an economic point of view, the disposal costs associated with products and product packaging can be seen as an externality. Internalizing those costs would give manufacturers and distributors incentives to minimize those costs, through reduced packaging or changes in design/manufacturing that would reduce the costs associated with product disposal.

Nonetheless, I’m skeptical of the USCM resolution and wonder about how “producer responsibility” will actually get implemented on the ground. The USCM resolution describes the “costs paid by local governments to manage products,” traditionally seen as a core governmental function, to be “in effect, subsidies to the producers of hazardous products and of products designed for disposal.” Language like this might reasonably lead one to conclude that the Mayors’ concern isn’t product stewardship, but just reducing local DPW budgets.

Taxes on the cost of disposal might cause manufacturers to change their processes to reduce the amount of waste associated with the end of their products’ life, but what if the most efficient way to handle such waste is still through centralized collection and disposal by municipalities? Perhaps one of my more informed readers will tell me how product stewardship can be operationalized to provide the appropriate incentives on manufacturers to reduce the life-cycle cost of their products while still leaving the handling and disposal of waste products where they can still be performed most efficiently. 

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Last week, EPA’s Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response announced release of its Community Engagement Implementation Plan. Who could be against community engagement? It’s as American as apple pie. It’s environmental justice. It’s community input into decisions that affect the community. It’s transparency and open decision-making.

Call me a curmudgeon, but I’m against it. Study after study shows that, in terms of the actual risks posed by Superfund sites, we devote too many of our environmental protection dollars to Superfund sites, when we should be focusing on air and water. Why do we keep doing this? Because the community demands it. As Peter Sandman has noted, perceptions of risk are driven only partly by the actual hazard posed. To a significant degree, those perceptions are more driven by outrage over the situation. In some circumstances, what Sandman calls outrage management makes sense, but I’m skeptical that EPA’s community engagement initiative is really about outrage management.

In any case, here’s the public policy question of the day. Does it really make sense to spend scarce environmental protection resources, not to reduce risk, but to reduce outrage?

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When the Burlington Northern decision was first announced, I concluded that “never has the Supreme Court done so much by doing so little.” On May 5, Judge John Mendez, of he Eastern District of California, proved me at least half right. In United States v. Iron Mountain Mines, joint and several liability was imposed on the defendants in 2002. The 2002 decision stated that “given the nature of pollution at the site, it would be difficult to identify distinct harms.” The court did not analyze whether there was a reasonable basis for apportionment of liability. 

Following the Burlington Northern decision, the defendants moved for reconsideration, arguing that Burlington Northern constituted an intervening change in the law. Defendants argued that “the Supreme Court clearly meant to send a signal to other courts that they must begin evaluating apportionment in a different way.” I think that the defendants in Iron Mountain were right.  Unfortunately, that’s not the standard for a motion for reconsideration.   If Iron Mountain were being decided for the first time today, the defendants might get a better result, but that doesn't mean that they win their motion for reconsideration.

What the Supreme Court really said in Burlington Northern isn’t that the law was wrong; it is that District Courts weren’t applying the law correctly. District court judges had their collective judicial thumbs firmly on the side of the government. The Supreme Court simply told the lower courts to take those thumbs off the scales. I hope that this decision will not encourage lower courts to keep the thumbs on the scales.

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Environmentalists have been pushing for years to overturn the Bevill Amendment and get coal combustion residuals (CCR) regulated as a hazardous waste. The failure of an impoundment at the TVA facility in Kingston, Tennessee, in 2008 almost guaranteed that EPA would do something to regulate CCR. Like Hamlet, however, EPA seems to be having trouble making up its mind. Earlier this week, EPA announced two different potential regulatory approaches, one regulating CCR as a hazardous waste under RCRA Subtitle C and one regulating CCR as non-hazardous waste under Subtitle D of RCRA.

Entities with coal generating assets have two problems, broadly speaking, with regulating CCR as a hazardous waste. The first is just the sheer magnitude of the costs required to address existing surface impoundments and find alternatives to impoundments going forward. I realize that there are significant scientific questions regarding whether migration of contamination from existing impoundments in fact poses any significant risk. However, this question was answered at a political level once the Kingston impoundment failed. It’s difficult to see any regulatory regime going forward that doesn’t strictly regulate impoundments.

The second significant issue is beneficial reuse. A very substantial amount of CCR is safely and economically reused. Strict regulation of CCR as a hazardous waste would, to put it mildly, put a crimp in the CCR recycling market. EPA, at least based on its public pronouncements to date, appears to get it, though time will tell whether the program the agency ultimately implements will nonetheless create needless obstacles to recycling CCR.

Thus, if I had to guess – and to paraphrase the Bard – recycling of CCR is to be, disposal of CCR in surface impoundments is not to be.

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One of the outstanding questions following the Supreme Court decisions in Aviall and Atlantic Research was whether a party which had entered into a consent decree with the United States and incurred direct response costs as a result could bring an action for cost recovery under § 107 of CERCLA or whether such a settling party would instead have a contribution action under § 113. The problem facing practitioners and the courts following Atlantic Research was that the Supreme Court seemed to have backed itself into a corner. By focusing its analysis of § 113 so narrowly on the traditional common law understanding of contribution, it at least suggested that contribution claims under § 113 might be limited to situations in which the plaintiff had paid “reimbursement” to satisfy a “common liability.”

Unfortunately, if a party which settled with the government and paid direct response costs could instead bring an action under § 107, then the defendant in the private action would face the specter of joint and several liability, notwithstanding that the private plaintiff was also liable. The Supreme Court thought it addressed this issue in Atlantic Research by noting that the defendant in a private action under § 107 could bring a contribution counterclaim, thus forcing an equitable allocation. However, as the Third Circuit noted in Agere Systems v. Advanced Environmental Technology, decided earlier this week, the Supreme Court’s solution doesn’t work when the private plaintiff has entered into a consent decree with the government pursuant to which it has protection against claims for contribution under § 113. Can Justice Thomas say “oops”?

What was the Third Circuit’s solution? Like Justice Thomas, it chose the straightforward approach. It simply barred private claims under § 107 where the private plaintiff would otherwise be liable under CERCLA, but, by virtue of contribution protection, would be immune from a counterclaim under § 113. While the holding is certainly right as a matter of policy, as a matter of law it seems largely a case of what we lawyers might call ipse dixit – basically, it’s so because I say so. Because it would be unfair to allow a private liable party to obtain a joint and several verdict against another private party, the court simply forbid it.

Interestingly, the Third Circuit did not address the question whether the plaintiffs had a right to bring a contribution action under § 113; it appeared to assume that they had such a right, without discussing the Supreme Court’s indication that contribution claims might be limited to reimbursement. If forced to face the issue directly, the Third Circuit would presumably have said that, just as we have to be fair to private defendants and not impose joint and several liability on them, we have to be fair to private plaintiffs and give them some kind of remedy. If they don’t have claims under § 107, they simply must have claims under § 113.

Given the practicality of the result, it seems likely that other courts of appeal will follow the Third Circuit’s lead. However, if the issue does somehow make it up to the Supreme Court, I still wouldn’t bet on the outcome there. They have surprised us before with their Superfund jurisprudence.

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As I have previously noted, Cass Sunstein, now head of the Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs at OMB under Obama, has called the precautionary principle “deeply incoherent.” Why? Because, as Sunstein notes, “costly precautions inevitably create risks.”

I hope that Sunstein is as troubled as I am by the news, reported recently by Inside EPA, that Mathy Stanislaus, head of EPA’s Office of Solid Waste & Emergency Response, has said that implementing the precautionary principle is a key to EPA’s environmental justice efforts.

When Stanislaus says that “we can’t wait until we have all the conclusive interpretive science to make a decision,” I agree with him, but that’s not the precautionary principle, that’s just a willingness to regulate under uncertainty, which has been a bedrock of environmental law.

However, the precautionary principle is something different and much more insidious. It’s not “regulate in spite of uncertainty” – it’s “regulate because of uncertainty.” It seems to stem from an almost Luddite fear of new technology and, as Sunstein points out, a philosophical view that nature is good and man-made is bad.

Stanislaus is head of OSWER. Is he going to oppose use of new cleanup technologies based on nanotechnology, because the precautionary principle says that we don’t know that nanomaterials are safe?

Stanislaus wants to “operationalize the precautionary principle.” Be worried, be very worried.

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Last week, Judge William Griesbach, of the Federal District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin, issued an important Superfund contribution decision, which shows just how much equitable discretion judges have in resolving contribution claims. In Appleton Papers v. George Whiting Paper, Judge Griesbach ruled, on summary judgment, that one equitable factor, knowledge of the potential environmental harm caused by PCBs, trumped all others, and that the plaintiffs, who had manufactured carbonless copy paper, or CCP, had no right to contribution from paper companies which used CCP and as a result discharged substantial amounts of PCBs into the Fox River.

The basis for Judge Griesbach’s holding was that “between parties who produced the product and those who merely processed it and recycled it along with all other paper products or water sources, these latter parties are significantly less blameworthy.” (The Judge’s italics, not mine.) This is not necessarily an unreasonable conclusion and probably within the Judge’s discretion to make, but does it follow that that is a sufficient basis to determine, without a trial, that the defendants were – literally – infinitely less blameworthy?

Interestingly, the plaintiffs had produced evidence that the defendants’ discharges had polluted the Fox River, even aside from PCBs. The Judge held that, because such other pollution did not cause response costs, it was irrelevant to the equitable judgment regarding who should pay to clean up PCBs.

The Judge also acknowledged that much of the contamination occurred before the plaintiffs themselves knew of the environmental risks posed by PCBs. Notably, however, the Judge did not discuss whether response costs would have been any different had discharges ceased as soon as the plaintiffs gained knowledge of the risks.

I’m not surprised that the plaintiffs in this contribution action are being held to bear the lion’s share of response costs. I am surprised that, on summary judgment, the court was able to conclude that the defendants’ share, notwithstanding their knowing pollution of the Fox River, and notwithstanding that much of the harm was caused before anyone had knowledge of the risks posed by PCBs, was a big, fat, zero.

What’s the real lesson here? The real lesson is that, while Judge Griesbach both noted that his equitable power is “broad and loose,” and acknowledged that it is “not unfettered,” the emphasis is greatly on the side of "broad and loose," and less so on the side of “not unfettered.” 

I’ve made this point in the past, but lesson one of Superfund contribution actions remains – Get The Judge On Your Side.

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In an interesting decision issued a few weeks ago, a District Court in Georgia held that a property manager at a strip mall could not be held liable as an owner of a facility under CERCLA. However, the court held that the property manager could be liable as an operator of the facility. I don't think that the decision is correct, but if it is the law, then property managers would be wise to consider carefully what responsibilities they are willing to assume and what sort of indemnification agreements may be required with the actual property owners.

The case, Scarlett & Associates v. Briarcliff Center Partners, involved a strip mall which had as one of its tenants – surprise, surprise – a dry cleaning operation. The owner had almost no connection to the property. It had leased the entire strip mall. When the lessee ran into financial problems, its lender took over the property and engaged Faison & Associates to manage the property for it. Faison managed the property for approximately two years, until the bank sold the lease.

It seems obvious that Faison was not an owner of the property, since it neither owned nor leased the property, and the court agreed.

However, the court denied Faison’s motion for summary judgment on operator liability. Looking to the Bestfoods decision, the court concluded that there was sufficient evidence that Faison "manage[d], direct[ed], or conduct[ed] operations specifically related to pollution….” The evidence cited by the court, however, is troubling, to say the least. In ruling against Faison, the court noted that Faison had informed the dry cleaner of certain EPA requirements and requested documentation that the dry cleaner was in compliance. There was also evidence that Faison “generally was responsible for managing and maintaining the shopping Center and performing all acts necessary to effect [the bank’s] compliance with all laws….”

I don’t think that that’s enough. In fact, the reverse seems to be the case. Don’t we want property managers to be taking steps to ensure that operating lessees comply with applicable regulations? If that can be evidence that the manager is an operator, the only result will be to cause property managers to be more hands off, which means less oversight, which means less compliance. The law has to be that property managers can take steps to ensure that lessees are in compliance without such steps being interpreted as “operation” of the facility by the manager.

Nonetheless, with this decision out there, if I were a property manager, I’d be very carefully reviewing my contracts both to ensure that I have minimized the likelihood that I will be considered an operator and to ensure that I have received proper indemnifications from the property owner.

Good luck.

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Late last week, Elliott Gilberg, Acting Director of EPA’s Office of Site Remediation Enforcement (OSRE) issued an Interim Policy on Managing the Duration of Remedial Design/Remedial Action Negotiations. Members of the regulated community may not be surprised by the contents of the memo, but they certainly will not be pleased. In brief, the memorandum fundamentally makes two points:

EPA wants to shorten the duration of RD/RA negotiation

EPA is going to use the heavy hammer of unilateral administrative orders, or UAOs, to keep PRPs’ feet to the fire and ensure that negotiations move quickly.

PRPs will likely agree that shortening the duration of negotiations would be a good outcome in the abstract – but achieving it by greater use of UAOs? I don’t think so.

I can only wonder if EPA has even considered the impact of the Burlington Northern decision here. Is this a perverse reaction from EPA? A metaphorical throwing down the gauntlet to PRPs? It certainly feels that way.

I have a different suggestion, if EPA truly wants to shorten negotiations. First, acknowledge Burlington Northern and compromise on the merits in those great majority of cases where there are legitimate divisibility arguments. Second, stop acting like the last bastion of command and control regulation. Set cleanup standards and then, to the maximum extent permitted by existing law, let PRPs clean up to those standards, without micromanaging every detail of the cleanup process.

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As a confirmed optimist and believer in technology, I’ve long thought that we can meet the challenge posed by global climate change – as long as we implement the right policies to provide incentives to develop the necessary technologies. Having the wide engineering knowledge that being a lawyer – as well as one of six political science graduates from MIT my year – provides, I have assumed that nanotechnology would play a substantial part in whatever the ultimate solution turns out to be.

Climate change is a big problem and we’re not there yet – especially since the incentives aren’t yet in place. Contaminated site remediation presents a more manageable set of problems, and nanotechnology finally does seem to be making significant headway in the remediation arena. According to a report just published in Environmental Health Perspectives, in-situ nanotechnology can reduce soil and groundwater remediation costs, as well as help to reach the cleanup end point more quickly. The study identifies a number of nano-scale materials that are being used for remediation, but the most common at this point and the one discussed in most detail in the study is zero valent iron.  The study is not definitive, but is based on a review of 45 sites at which nanotechnology has been used or is in process.

In conjunction with the study, the Project on Emerging Nanotechnologies has also produced a map showing the location of sites at which nanotechnology has been used as a remediation technology and providing some information about each site.

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In an interesting case, the Court of Appeals for the First Circuit this week vacated most of a preliminary injunction issued by a federal judge in Puerto Rico, because, the Court concluded, the lower court had wrongly, and without doing so explicitly, converted a PI hearing into a hearing on the merits.

In Sanchez v. Esso, a gasoline station operator brought RCRA citizen suit claims against Esso, which supplied gasoline to the station, and which actually was the owner of the USTs in which the gasoline was stored. Plaintiffs requested a PI requiring Esso both to assess and to remediate the contamination resulting from leaks in the tanks. After the District Court issued the PI, Esso sought interlocutory relief.  The Court of Appeals vacated most of the injunction.

As the Court of Appeals noted:

[w]hen a trial court ‘disposes of a case on the merits after a preliminary-injunction hearing … it is likely that one or more of the parties will not present their entire case….  Therefore, it is ordinarily improper to decide a case solely on such a basis. 

Reviewing the District Court proceedings, the Court of Appeals pointed to District Court’s statement that the Esso “appear[ed] to be in continuous violation” of the applicable regulations.  Moreover, following issuance of the injunction, Esso had asked the District Court to require the plaintiffs to post a bond.  The District Court denied the request on the ground that:

"'the grant of the preliminary injunction carried[d] no risk of monetary loss" for Esso in the face of the "documented" contamination resulting from Esso’s "violation of regulatory safeguards."

The District Court also made statements to the effect that the only issue going forward was the “extent” of Esso’s liability.

The Court of Appeals concluded that it was “inescapable” that the District Court pre-judged Esso’s ultimate liability.  Aside from the District Court’s conclusory statements about liability, the District Court also failed to address the traditional factors required for issuance of a PI.  This was “a clear error of law.”

It is unclear what impact this case will have. However, RCRA, like most environmental statutes, has an element of strict liability.  The strict liability nature of these statutes often makes it too easy for courts – and perhaps regulators at times? – simply to assume that a defendant is liable, without worrying about the sometimes messy process of discovery and the taking of evidence.  Sanchez v. Esso thus serves as a welcome reminder that even in a world of strict liability, a defendant remains entitled to his day in court.

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For those of you who cannot get enough of Superfund, I spoke at a Boston Bar Association panel on this subject yesterday about the implications of the Supreme Court’s Burlington Northern decision. Thanks to EPA Region I and Joanna Jerison, head of the Region I Superfund Legal Office, for being willing to speak on so obviously sore a subject. And thanks to Craig Campbell for participating on the panel as well.

As you can see from her presentation and mine, it appears that EPA and the private bar do not yet have a common understanding of the implications of the case. Isn’t that a surprise?

I still think, as I said at the meeting, that never has the Supreme Court done so much by doing so little. With respect to the divisibility issue, which is of the greatest long-run significance, the Court explicitly did not change the law at all. And yet …. We all know that they did. Now, instead of divisibility being an insuperable hurdle, it should become something like routine.

Or so I hope.  

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One more note on the Burlington Northern decision.  A client of mine has already noted that one impact of the decision will be to result in more litigation over divisibility, which will be good for private lawyers (ouch!).  She’s right, as my clients always are, but she shouldn’t be.

Litigation should only increase if EPA does not adjust its settlement demands. If EPA responds appropriately, and makes demands which reflect a fair resolution of a divisible liability, then there shouldn’t necessarily be more litigation than there is today.  However, if EPA continues to negotiate with PRPs as though liability is always joint and several, then there will certainly be more litigation – and EPA will start to lose some more cases.  

Anyone care to bet which response by EPA is more likely?

If EPA adjusts its settlement demands downward in response to the decision – or if we start to see litigation in which courts find liability to be divisible – then EPA’s ability to fund Superfund cleanups will be under even more pressure.  This could provide some additional momentum behind the current Congressional effort to reinstitute the Superfund tax.

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As some of my clients know all too well, I’ve been spending a lot of time on some Superfund matters recently. Although I can’t remember a period when I didn’t have at least one moderately active Superfund case, significant immersion in complex remedial decision-making and negotiations provides an unwelcome reminder just how flawed CERCLA is. Almost 20 years after the acid rain provisions of the Clean Air Act ushered in wide-spread acceptance of the use of market mechanisms to achieve environmental protection goals and the state of Massachusetts successfully privatized its state Superfund program, the federal Superfund program, like some obscure former Russian republic which remains devoted to Stalinism, is one of the last bastions of pure command and control regulation.

Can anyone tell me why the remedy selection process takes years and costs millions of dollars – before any cleanup has occurred or risk reduction been achieved? Can anyone tell me why, after the remedy has been selected, EPA has to spend millions of dollars – charged back to the PRPs, of course – to oversee the cleanup? Oversight costs can easily exceed 10% of cleanup costs, while oversight during the remedial design and feasibility study process sometimes seem to be barely less than the cost of actually performing the RI/FS.

While there are certainly a multiplicity of causes, there are two factors which greatly contribute to the problem. One was, coincidentally, highlighted in a post today by my friend Rob Stavins. As Rob noted, unlike the acid rain program, which was new at the time, the Superfund bureaucracy is well entrenched and there are a number of actors with a vested interest in maintaining the status quo. 

The second issue relates to the genesis of the Superfund program, as well as its continuing raison d’être. Whenever EPA has ranked relative risks from different environmental hazards, Superfund sites come in at the bottom. However, if you think back to Superfund’s origins, what comes to mind? Love Canal and the Valley of the Drums – and some concerned near-by residents who rallied around a cause to ensure that the problem would be addressed. As renowned risk communications expert Dr. Peter Sandman has noted, there is not necessarily a significant correlation between actual risk levels and public outrage, and it’s not possible to decrease outrage simply by providing accurate information about risks.

In short, the public is outraged by hazardous waste sites and does not trust PRPs to clean them properly. All of those EPA oversight costs are, in large part, intended not to decrease risk, but to lower outrage.  Outrage is understandable in some circumstances, and efforts to reduce it are laudable, but is it really an appropriate use of scarce environmental protection resources to spend the money that gets poured into Superfund sites?

There has to be a better way. Indeed, there is a better way. It’s called a privatized system in which PRPs have to meet well-defined cleanup standards, but are allowed to do so on their own, in whatever manner is most cost-effective, subject to audits by regulators. Privatized programs such as the one in Massachusetts are not perfect. However, their flaws – which largely stem from a failure to fully support privatization -- pale in comparison to the waste that is the federal program under CERCLA.

In other contexts, I’ve called on the Obama administration to embrace regulatory reform. Why not start with Superfund? Notwithstanding Rob Stavins’ point about the difficulty of overturning an entrenched status quo, if the states could do it, why not the federal government?

Besides, I have an entrenched personal reason for seeking Superfund reform. This stuff drives me nuts.

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For those following developments in Superfund cost recovery and contribution case law after the Atlantic Research decision, it seemed worth noting that the Second Circuit Court of Appeals recently held, in W.R. Grace & Co. – Conn. v. Zotos International, Inc., that a party who incurs response costs pursuant to a state consent order has a right to bring an action to recover those response costs under § 107 of CERCLA.

Thus, the 2^nd Circuit has answered the question left open by note 6 in Atlantic Research, and come down on the side of actions under § 107, rather than § 113. Although it is only dicta in Zotos, the 2^nd Circuit also seemed to support the view the claims under § 113 will be narrowly limited to those that really are traditional contribution claims, i.e., actions in which the contribution plaintiff seeks to recover from one party payments that it made to another party – usually the United States or a State – to address the contribution plaintiff’s potential liability under CERCLA.

I’m tempted to say that this result is unsurprising and perhaps even obvious – except that nothing is unsurprising or obvious under CERCLA. As I have previously noted, only the Supreme Court seems to think that interpreting CERCLA is a straightforward exercise, so there is no assurance that the Zotos interpretation will sweep the land.

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Attorneys who have litigated citizen suits under RCRA have often wondered if there is any possible risk that would not qualify as an “imminent and substantial endangerment,” thus subjecting the person who “contributed” to such endangerment to liability under RCRA.

In Scotchtown Holdings v. Town of Goshen, the District Court for the Southern District of New York earlier this month established at least some outer parameters for this seemingly boundless phrase. In Scotchtown Holdings, the owner of land allegedly contaminated by the defendant’s use of sodium chloride – also known as salt to the uninitiated – caused groundwater contamination that precluded development of the plaintiff’s property for residential use.

The court granted the defendant’s motion to dismiss on the ground that, because the property had not already been developed – and because the contamination meant that it would not be developed – there was no imminent and substantial endangerment.

It may be that this decision is obvious and unremarkable. It is certainly distinguishable from cases where at least a potential future exposure exists if no cleanup were to occur and current land uses remain unchanged.  In Scotchtown Holdings, no exposure would occur unless land use were to change.  Nonetheless, for those of us who thought that the presence of contamination almost meant that an imminent and substantial endangerment existed, QED, the decision is a breath of fresh air.

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Those of us who litigate know that, with all respect to our expert colleagues, pulling a necessary opinion out of an expert can be very difficult. Experts like adjectives and adverbs, particularly if those modifiers help the expert avoid saying anything meaningful. A recent decision from the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit makes clear the limits of such timidity.

In Miller v. Mandrin Homes, the plaintiffs alleged that the defendants sold them a house that was subject to contamination. The plaintiffs brought several claims, including one under CERCLA, which they admitted was the crux of the case. As our readers know, one of the elements of a prima facie case under CERCLA is proof that there has been a release or threatened release of a hazardous substance. 

Unfortunately for the plaintiffs’, their expert only stated that contamination detected in a sump at the house was “indicative” of a release. The court found such testimony speculative, stating that this phrase “does not show that [the expert] … could testify that it was his scientific opinion that groundwater contamination existed. [The expert] stated his opinion in a passive manner that suggests his finding falls in the realm of the possible rather than the probable.”

The lesson here is critical, if basic. Know the elements of your case. If they are subject to expert opinion, make sure that your expert is willing to state that it is more likely than not that the relevant fact is true. I have often had the precise experience of working with experts to change their use of “indicates” to “demonstrates” or similar such language. If you are in litigation or at risk of litigation, ignore this issue at your peril.

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The magnitude of the recent release of coal ash from the TVA dam is hard to fathom, though the pictures certainly give some sense of its magnitude. Now, as regulators and Congress attempt to get their collective arms around the import of the release, some of the regulatory implications of the release are starting to emerge. According to a report in yesterday’s Greenwire, Congressional hearings this week may include a discussion regarding whether coal ash should continue to be exempt from regulation as a hazardous waste under RCRA

The exemption of coal ash is critical to coal-fired power plants. According to the article, 130 million tons of fly ash were generated last year, 42 percent of which were beneficially reused. Moreover, there are approximately 600 landfills and containment ponds holding fly ash. Having helped a coal-fired power plant defend a law suit involving an on-site ash landfill some years ago, I can tell you from personal experience that placing fly ash within the ambit of RCRA hazardous waste rules would be a major headache for coal-fired power plants – and a major new weapon in the armory of those who want to shut down coal plants any way possible.

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For those of you who haven’t been keeping up with the law on private cost recovery and contribution claims under CERCLA, following the decision in Atlantic Research, I recently participated in a panel discussion on the issue. A copy of my presentation can be found here.

The most contentious issue during the discussion was whether private parties who have settled with the government and performed direct cleanups – as opposed to reimbursing the government – as a result of such settlements have an action for cost recovery under § 107 of CERCLA or an action for contribution under § 113 of CERCLA. 

My own view is that the Supreme Court has backed itself into a corner by so narrowly associating claims under § 113 with traditional contribution claims. It seems to me that the Court has limited contribution claims to situations where one liable party has reimbursed the original plaintiff for more than the contribution plaintiff’s fair share of the common liability. Thus, in a situation where the private plaintiff has directly incurred response costs – even if following a consent decree – no contribution claim lies. This is also consistent with a plain reading of § 107 – and we know that the Supreme Court loves plain language interpretations of CERCLA – which provides for claims for response costs, without any distinction being drawn between whether those costs were incurred voluntarily or not.

As I said at the panel, I just wish that the language of CERCLA was as clear to me and all of the practitioners with whom I work as it apparently is to Justice Thomas and the rest of the Supreme Court.

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The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is set to publish a Final Rule creating an optional, alternative set of generator requirements for hazardous waste generated or accumulated in laboratories at “eligible academic entities”: (1) colleges and universities; (2) non-profit research institutes owned or affiliated with a college or university; or (3) teaching hospitals owned or affiliated with a college or university. 

The Rule will append a new subpart, Subpart K, to the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) hazardous waste generator regulatory requirements of 40 CFR 262. Eligible academic entities may choose to have their laboratories subject to Subpart K in lieu of existing generator requirements. Notable provisions of Subpart K, include the following:

(1) Rather than requiring a hazardous waste determination at the time of generation, Subpart K allows eligible academic entities to make hazardous waste determinations when the waste is removed from the laboratory or within four days of arriving at an on-site central accumulation area (CAA) or on-site interim status or permitted treated, storage, or disposal facility (TSDF).

(2) Eligible academic entities will need to create Laboratory Management Plans (LMPs), a portion of which will be enforceable by EPA, describing how the entity will label containers and manage “unwanted materials” prior to hazardous waste determinations.

(3) Once every twelve (12) months, each laboratory will have thirty (30) days to clean-out any hazardous waste that consists of unused or commercial chemical products and will not have to count such waste towards the entity’s generator status. 

Eligible entities that have developed successful programs consistent with the existing generator regulations may choose not to become subject to the increased burden of Subpart K. I believe, however, that the Rule will be a welcome option for entities that have had a difficult time managing large numbers of laboratories (and students) generating small amounts of hazardous wastes that vary in type by semester.   

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Two recent federal decisions may aid regulators and activists seeking to hold companies liable under the Resource Conservation & Recovery Act (RCRA) for historical soil or groundwater contamination that could migrate as vapor and contaminate indoor air.

On July 28, 2008, in United States v. Apex Oil Company, Inc., the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Illinois found the owner of a petroleum pipeline strictly liable under RCRA for pipeline leaks that contaminated soil and groundwater decades prior, and granted injunctive relief requiring the owner to abate the contamination. In Apex Oil, the Department of Justice filed suit under § 7003(a) of RCRA, which enables the federal government to force remedial actions when contamination may present an "imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment."  The Court found that vapors emanating from petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in soils could present an imminent and substantial endangerment to health under RCRA because residents could suffer adverse health effects when exposed to the vapors or be harmed by fires or explosions caused by the vapors. Of significance, the court noted that an “endangerment” need not be quantifiable, definite, or pose an emergency situation for it to be substantial and thus actionable under RCRA. An appeal of the Apex Oil decision is pending in the Seventh Circuit.

On June 12, 2008, in Grace Christian Fellowship v. KJG Investments, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Wisconsin allowed, in part, rebuttal testimony supporting a RCRA claim that vapors from soil contaminated by a gasoline leak at an adjacent gas station were entering the basement of a church and threatening the health and safety of the occupants. The Grace court has yet to issue a final decision as to whether the gas station is actually liable under RCRA or required to remediate the underlying contamination. 

Both decisions could provide support for regulators and activists arguing that vapor intrusion meets RCRA’s standards for imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment. The Apex Oil decision also indicates that the underlying contamination need not be recent for RCRA standards to be satisfied. As liability under RCRA is strict, these cases highlight the importance of assessing whether a potential vapor intrusion condition exists on already-contaminated property or property that is the subject of a real estate transaction. 

Locally, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (MassDEP) recently promulgated regulations and standards under the Massachusetts Contingency Plan (MCP), governing the mitigation of potential indoor contamination caused by vapor intrusion. These state regulatory developments only underscore the fact that potential vapor intrusion issues must be addressed. Property owners will ignore these issues at their financial and legal peril.

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In a recent decision, the 7^th Circuit Court of Appeals confirmed that neither CERCLA nor RCRA provide convenient ways for the buyer of a building containing asbestos to finance the abatement of that asbestos. In Sycamore Industrial Park Associates v. Ericsson, the seller of the building replaced the old heating equipment shortly prior to sale, but left the old system, including piping, in place. The buyer sought to make the seller pay for the asbestos abatement on the ground that the seller has disposed of the old equipment by abandoning it in place when it installed the new system. The 7^th Circuit didn’t buy it.

The Court acknowledged that there might be a close question as to whether the asbestos constituted a solid or hazardous waste or RCRA and CERCLA. However, the Court concluded that it need not answer the question, because the seller had not “disposed” of the material. The Court concluded that, where all of the asbestos was either inside the building or inside a pipe chase, there “is no real threat that asbestos ‘or any constituent thereof may enter the environment or be emitted into the air or discharged into any waters….” 

The Court did indicate that the intent of the seller may be relevant; it gave the example that a person looking to avoid liability for a toxic retaining pond, could not sell the entire property, including the pond, as a means of avoiding such liability. It described this situation as the “malicious motive case.” Absent such a malicious motive, however, sale of property including toxic or hazardous material does not put a person into the category of potentially responsible parties.

Similar to its analysis of the “disposal” question, the Court also concluded that there was no release or threat of release that would subject a person to CERCLA liability. “We reaffirm that when there is no emission into the outside environment,… there is no release or threatened release, and thus there can be no liability under CERCLA. 

The Court reached the same conclusion under RCRA. First, utilizing the same analysis as under CERCLA, it found that there had been no disposal by the seller. It also rejected the allegation that the seller had handled or stored the asbestos, concluding that “RCRA requires active involvement in handling or storing of materials for liability.”

In short, if the asbestos isn’t walking out the door, it may be a problem inside a building, but CERCLA and RCRA won’t help the building owner pay to fix that problem.

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On October 7, 2008, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) issued a new final rule (the “Rule”) that exempts certain recycled hazardous secondary materials from RCRA’s “cradle to the grave” regulatory system.

Hazardous waste is regulated under Subtitle C of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA). A hazardous secondary material can only be classified as a hazardous waste if it is first determined to be a solid waste as defined in Section 261.2 of the RCRA regulations. Previously, Section 261.2 classified some hazardous secondary materials, but not others, as solid wastes even when recycled. As complying with RCRA can be expensive and burdensome, Section 261.2 likely deterred many companies from recycling hazardous secondary materials deemed to be solid waste.  

The new Rule now explicitly excludes from the definition of solid waste three categories of hazardous secondary materials that are “legitimately” recycled. First, the Rule excludes hazardous secondary materials that are generated and reclaimed under the control of the generator (i.e., generated and reclaimed on-site, by the same company, or under “tolling” agreements). Second, the Rule excludes materials that are transferred by a generator to a reclamation facility (or an intermediate facility prior to recycling at a reclamation facility), provided that certain conditions are met. Finally, the Rule provides a procedure for applying for a case-by-case “non-waste determination” when the hazardous secondary material is legitimately recycled in a continuous industrial process or indistinguishable in all relevant aspects from a product or intermediate. The new exclusions and non-waste determination are, however, not available for materials that are: (1) considered inherently waste-like; (2) used in a manner constituting disposal; or (3) burned for energy recovery.       

For a hazardous secondary material to be “legitimately” recycled under the new exclusions or a non-waste determination, the following factors must be met: (1) the material must provide a useful contribution to the recycling process; and (2) the recycling process must make a valuable new intermediate or final product. Two additional factors must be considered, but are not mandatory: (3) whether the recycled material is managed as a valuable commodity; and (4) whether the recycled product contains toxic constituents at significantly greater levels than a non-recycled product made from virgin materials. EPA has long assessed the legitimacy of recycling activities under RCRA based on substantially these same four factors. See 53 FR 522. This Rule merely codifies the factors with minor adjustments.

Overall, the Rule is a helpful example of deregulation that should facilitate recycling without sacrificing environmental protection. The facilities most likely to benefit from the rule will include manufacturers that generate or already recycle hazardous secondary materials.  The most common types of recyclable materials that would be affected by the rule are metal-bearing secondary materials and solvents.

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As pretty much everyone knows, in order to improve its prospects for passage, the Senate added certain tax provisions to the financial bailout bill – also know as the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008, or H.R. 1424 – enacted earlier this month. One of the provisions included in the EESA was an extension of the brownfields tax incentive.

The brownfields tax incentive, originally enacted as part of the Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, and codified as Section 198 of the internal revenue code, allows developers to immediately expense the cost of remedial work at brownfields sites, rather than having to capitalize such costs. The incentive actually expired as of December 31, 2007, but the EESA provision extends that date to December 31, 2009.

Historically, this tax incentive has been used only rarely used. In a report from 2007, the Congressional Research Service identified several possible reasons why. One issue is that the taxpayer must obtain certification from the relevant state environmental agency that the property qualifies as a brownfields site. However, more relevant here, the report noted that Congress’s failure to make the provision permanent – it has expired and been renewed several times at this point – is a significant factor in its limited utility. 

Given that the EESA renewal of the provision only continues this stop and start quality, it is not obvious that the provision will find any greater utility now than previously. Nonetheless, for those who are aware of it and whose property qualifies, extension of the provision is certainly good news.

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