Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-caDC-03-01455/USCOURTS-caDC-03-01455-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Carus Chemical Company
Petitioner
Environmental Protection Agency
Respondent

Document Text:

United States Court of Appeals

FOR THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA CIRCUIT

Argued October 14, 2004 Decided January 11, 2005

No. 03-1455

CARUS CHEMICAL COMPANY,

PETITIONER

V.

UNITED STATES ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY,

RESPONDENT

On Petition for Review of an Order of the

Environmental Protection Agency

Thomas W. Dimond argued the cause for petitioner. With

him on the brief were John C. Berghoff, Jr. and Jennifer R.

Hagan.

Ammie Roseman-Orr, Attorney, U.S. Department of Justice,

argued the cause for respondent. With her on the brief were

John C. Cruden, Deputy Assistant Attorney General, and Sheila

M. Igoe, Attorney, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

Before: GINSBURG, Chief Judge, and HENDERSON and

ROBERTS, Circuit Judges.

 

Opinion for the Court filed by Chief Judge GINSBURG. 

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GINSBURG, Chief Judge: The Environmental Protection

Agency placed a site owned in part by Carus Chemical

Company on the National Priorities List (NPL) of hazardous

waste sites, pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental

Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA),

94 Stat. 2767, 42 U.S.C. § 9601 et seq., and its implementing

regulations. Carus argues the EPA’s action was arbitrary and

capricious because the agency misinterpreted, and hence

misapplied, its Hazard Ranking System, and because it

disregarded more recent data that contradicted those upon which

the agency relied. 

We hold that neither the EPA’s interpretation nor its

application of the disputed regulation was unreasonable.

Further, the agency reviewed the data Carus submitted and

correctly concluded they did not cast doubt upon the decision to

list the site. Accordingly, we deny the petition for review. 

 

I. Background 

Carus operates a manufacturing plant east of La Salle,

Illinois on a parcel of land, once part of a larger property to

which the EPA refers as the Matthiessen & Hegeler Zinc

Company Site, where the latter company operated a smelter and

a rolling mill for more than 100 years. During that period, there

accumulated at the site two large slag piles, one of which, six

acres in extent, is located adjacent to (and partly in) the Little

Vermilion River and partly on Carus’s property. The EPA

decided that hazardous substances in the slag piles posed a threat

to human health and to the environment sufficient to warrant

putting the entire Matthiessen & Hegeler site on the NPL. 

Before recounting the specifics of the EPA’s decision, an

explanation of the statute and regulations underlying the NPL is

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in order. The CERCLA directs the President, who delegated the

responsibility to the EPA, to compile a list of cleanup priorities

among hazardous waste sites around the country. The EPA’s

listing a site on the NPL, however, does not necessarily mean it

will order remedial action at that site, see Honeywell Int’l, Inc.

v. EPA, 372 F.3d 441, 443 (D.C. Cir. 2004); rather, it guarantees

only more detailed study, see Eagle-Picher Indus., Inc. v. EPA,

759 F.2d 905, 919-20 (D.C. Cir. 1985). Nonetheless, listing can

have significant adverse consequences for the owner of a listed

property. See Mead Corp. v. Browner, 100 F.3d 152, 155 (D.C.

Cir. 1996) (costs in business reputation, property value, and

increased probability of remediation).

In order to identify candidates for the NPL, the EPA

promulgated the Hazard Ranking System (HRS), see 40 C.F.R.

pt. 300, App. A, a comprehensive methodology and

mathematical model the agency uses to “evaluate[] the observed

or potential release of hazardous substances” and to “quantif[y]

the environmental risks a site poses.” Tex Tin Corp. v. EPA, 992

F.2d 353, 353 (D.C. Cir. 1993).

In order to evaluate a waste site using the HRS, the EPA

first identifies the “sources” of contamination, the “[h]azardous

substances associated with these sources,” and the “[p]athways

potentially threatened by these hazardous substances.” HRS §

2.2. The HRS lists four possible pathways: soil exposure, air

migration, ground water migration, and the one relevant to this

case, surface water migration. Id. at § 2.1. For each pathway

deemed potentially affected in light of conditions at the site, the

agency calculates a score based upon particular “threats.” The

surface water migration pathway is scored based upon threats to

drinking water, to the human food chain, and to the

environment. See id. at § 4.0.1. With respect to each pathway

and threat to be scored, the HRS calls for the EPA to measure

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three so-called factor categories: “likelihood of release (or

likelihood of exposure)”; “waste characteristics”; and “targets,”

which may include an individual, a human population,

resources, and sensitive environments. Id. at § 2.1.3. The

agency’s measurements of the first two categories are relevant

to this case.

The “[l]ikelihood of release is a measure of the likelihood

that a waste has been or will be released to the environment.”

Id. at § 2.3. When, as in this case, the EPA determines there has

already been a release, it assigns a fixed number for this

component of the overall score of the pathway, regardless of the

level of that release. Id.

With respect to waste characteristics, the HRS first requires

the EPA to “select the hazardous substance potentially posing

the greatest hazard for the pathway.” Id. at § 2.4.1. The agency

is then to evaluate persistence, bioaccumulation, and toxicity

factors pertaining to that substance, id. at § 2.4 (only the last of

which features in this case).

For each substance being scored, the agency uses a toxicity

factor value between 0 and 10,000, reflecting the potential of

that substance to cause adverse health effects. For a single

substance there may be multiple toxicity factor values, each

corresponding to a route of exposure (e.g., inhalation, ingestion)

through which that substance may come into contact with

humans. If there are, and if the agency has “usable toxicity

data” for more than one such exposure route, then it should

“consider all exposure routes and use the highest assigned value,

regardless of exposure route, as the toxicity factor value.” Id. at

§ 2.4.1.1. 

Based upon the considerations recounted above (as well as

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others not relevant here), the EPA assigns each site a score from

0 to 100. A site with a score greater than 28.50 is eligible for

the NPL. See 68 Fed. Reg. 55,875, 55,876 (Sept. 29, 2003). 

The EPA’s study of the Matthiessen & Hegeler site began

with an aerial photograph of the site taken in 1988 and with data

compiled by the Environmental Protection Agency of Illinois in

1991 and 1993 from sediment, groundwater, and soil samples

taken around the slag piles. Upon the basis of this evidence, the

EPA determined that hazardous substances were being released

into the Little Vermilion River. Because the observed release

was into a river, the agency scored the surface water migration

pathway, and because Illinois classified that river as a fishery,

the agency scored that pathway for the threat it posed to the

human food chain. 

Following the method set forth in the HRS, the EPA then

assessed the “waste characteristics” of the hazardous substances

found at the site, namely, cadmium, copper, lead, nickel, and

zinc. Carus’s principal dispute is over the EPA’s choice,

purportedly in compliance with HRS § 2.4.1.1, to use the

toxicity factor value for cadmium corresponding to the

inhalation route of exposure. Plugging this value into the model,

the EPA calculated a score of 100 for the pathway and a total

score of 50 for the Matthiessen & Hegeler site.

Because the total score exceeded 28.50, the EPA proposed

to list the site on the NPL. See 66 Fed. Reg. 32,287, 32,290,

32,293 (June 14, 2001). Carus submitted comments in

opposition to the listing, which comments included technical

documents prepared for it by GeoSyntec Consulting. The EPA

found the objections raised in those comments unpersuasive and,

accordingly, published a final rule adding the Matthiessen &

Hegeler site to the NPL. 68 Fed. Reg. at 55,878. Carus now

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petitions for review of that decision. 

II. Analysis

Carus raises two separate challenges to the EPA’s decision

to place the Matthiessen & Hegeler site on the NPL. First,

Carus argues the agency wrongly interpreted HRS § 2.4.1.1 as

requiring it to use a toxicity factor value for cadmium

corresponding to a route of exposure (inhalation) unlikely to

occur in light of the conditions at the site. Had the agency

instead applied the toxicity factor value corresponding to the

ingestion route of exposure, Carus maintains, the HRS score for

the site would have been below 28.50. Second, Carus contends

the sampling data and the documents it submitted during the

comment period rendered unreasonable the EPA’s reliance

solely upon data collected earlier by the Illinois EPA.

A. The EPA’s Interpretation of HRS § 2.4.1.1

As the EPA understands HRS § 2.4.1.1, and as it applied

that regulation in the rulemaking under review, 68 Fed. Reg. at

55,875-55,882, the agency was required to use the toxicity factor

value for the inhalation of cadmium even though it was scoring

the surface water migration pathway. Carus takes exception to

that interpretation, arguing it is nonsensical to read the rule as

mandating the use of a toxicity factor value corresponding to an

exposure route (inhalation) unlikely to present a threat

considering the pathway being scored. 

An agency is, of course, entitled to “substantial deference”

in its “interpretation of its own regulations.” Thomas Jefferson

Univ. v. Shalala, 512 U.S. 504, 512 (1994). Carus does not

quarrel with this principle but nonetheless argues deference to

the EPA’s interpretation of § 2.4.1.1 is not appropriate because

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(Carus nakedly asserts) that interpretation is simply a “litigation

position.” See Bowen v. Georgetown Univ. Hosp., 488 U.S. 204,

212 (1988) (court owes no “deference to an agency counsel’s

interpretation of a statute where the agency itself has articulated

no position on the question”). But see Auer v. Robbins, 519 U.S.

452, 462 (1997) (agency interpretation of regulation first

appearing in legal brief not categorically unworthy of

deference). 

We need not, however, concern ourselves today with the

degree of deference owed to an agency’s regulatory

interpretation first articulated in the course of litigation. See

generally Drake v. FAA, 291 F.3d 59, 68 (D.C. Cir. 2002)

(listing three conditions for deference in that circumstance). The

EPA has consistently interpreted § 2.4.1.1 as requiring it to use

the highest toxicity factor value for a substance regardless of the

most likely route of exposure. Indeed, the protest Carus now

advances – that there is no scientific justification for using the

toxicity factor value for a route of exposure that is improbable

in light of the pathway being scored – was made and rejected

when the EPA first issued the regulation. At that time, the

agency defended its interpretation of the rule as follows:

EPA recognizes that toxicity values for substances are

route-specific. However, the three pathways ... receiving a

toxicity factor value are substance migration pathways, not

human exposure routes. Multiple human exposure routes

are possible for each substance migration pathway (e.g.,

volatile substances in ground water or surface water used

for drinking can be inhaled during showering), and,

therefore, use of a single route-specific toxicity value is not

necessarily appropriate .... For this reason, and to avoid the

added complexity of route-specific toxicity evaluations,

EPA decided to base the toxicity factor on the highest

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route-specific value (if more than one is available) ....

[T]his may, in a few site situations, overstate toxicity .... 

Responsesto Comments on the RevisionstotheHazard Ranking

System (HRS), at 3-G1 (1990). 

The EPA’s original understanding of HRS § 2.4.1.1 is

reflected in its response to Carus’s comments in the proceeding

now under review, and Carus points to not one instance in the

intervening dozen years in which the agency applied the

regulation differently. We therefore have no basis for treating

the EPA’s interpretation of its regulation as though it were a

mere litigation position. Consequently, we must defer to that

interpretation unless “an alternative reading is compelled by the

regulation’s plain language” or by other indicia of the agency’s

“intent at the time of the regulation’s promulgation.” Thomas

Jefferson Univ., 512 U.S. at 512;see also Castlewood Products,

L.L.C. v. Norton, 365 F.3d 1076, 1082 (D.C. Cir. 2004). 

Under that standard of review, we must uphold the EPA’s

interpretation because it accords both with the text of the

regulation and with what we know of the agency’s

understanding of the rule when it was issued. 

As for the former, the regulation reads in relevant part as

follows:

Toxicity Factor. Evaluate toxicity for those hazardous

substances at the site that are available to the pathway being

scored. For all pathways and threats, except the surface

water environmental threat, evaluate human toxicity as

specified below.

....

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*

In its brief, Carus also claims support from HRS § 1 which,

it says, provides the agency is to assign “numerical values to factors,

that relate to or indicate risk, based on conditions at the site.” Neither

the italicized words nor any variation thereof appear in § 1 nor, as far

as we can tell, anywhere in the HRS. Instead, that phrase appears only

in the document issued by the EPA along with the rule that added the

Matthiessen & Hegeler site to the NPL. See Support Document for the

Revised National Priorities List Final Rule – September 2003, at ix.

Because the quoted words are not part of the HRS they are of no

assistance to Carus in its effort to show the agency misinterpreted the

For hazardous substances having usable toxicity data for

multiple exposure routes (for example, inhalation and

ingestion), consider all exposure routes and use the highest

assigned value, regardless of exposure route, as the toxicity

factor value.

HRS § 2.4.1.1. The EPA’s interpretation clearly hews close to

the text. The rule first directs the agency to “[e]valuate [the]

toxicity” of each hazardous substance “available to the pathway

being scored,” and then unequivocally requires that, when the

substance being scored has “usable toxicity data for multiple

exposure routes” – as does cadmium – the EPA “consider all

exposure routes and use the highest assigned value, regardless

of exposure route.” 

Carus does not claim the EPA failed to follow its own longstanding interpretation of the rule; rather, Carus complains that

the agency has misread the rule – presumably ever since its

promulgation. Read properly, per Carus, the rule allows the use

of only those toxicity factor values corresponding to routes of

exposure the EPA finds are a threat at the site. In support of this

interpretation, Carus points to the reference, in the opening

sentence of the rule, to the “pathway being scored.”* According

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HRS. In any event, in the same support document the EPA explained

that HRS § 2.4.1.1 required it to use the highest toxicity factor value

for a substance regardless of exposure route. Id. at 1.1-21. 

to Carus, this phrase modifies not just the preceding clause of

the same sentence but the entire rule, thus requiring the EPA to

decide whether exposure via a particular route is likely,

considering the pathway being scored, before it uses a toxicity

factor value corresponding to that exposure route. 

We need not tarry long over this claim. “A challenge to an

agency’s interpretation of its own regulation ... turns not on

whether the challenger has articulated a rationale to support its

interpretation, but on whether the agency has offered an

explanation that is reasonable and consistent with the

regulation’s language and history.” Trinity Broad. of Fla., Inc.,

v. FCC, 211 F.3d 618, 627 (D.C. Cir. 2000). Even if we owed

no deference to the agency, however, we would not be

persuaded by Carus’s alternative reading of the rule. First, the

phrase “available to the pathway” plainly limits only the

universe of hazardous substances the EPA may use in scoring a

pathway; the phrase cannot reasonably be read to limit, as Carus

suggests, the universe of toxicity factor values upon which the

agency may draw. Second, Carus would read out of the

regulation the direction to use the highest toxicity factor value

“regardless of exposure route,” in contravention of the principle

that every word of a legal text should be given effect. See

United States v. Menasche, 348 U.S. 528, 520 (1955)

(interpretation must “give effect, if possible, to every clause and

word of a statute”). 

Carus nonetheless seeks to bolster the plausibility of its

interpretation by arguing the EPA’s reading lacks a “rational

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basis” in science and in common sense. The rationality of

§ 2.4.1.1, however, is not before us; the Congress, in § 113(a) of

the CERCLA, provided that a substantive challenge to a

regulation promulgated under that Act must be made within 90

days of its promulgation. See 42 U.S.C. § 9613(a). The time to

challenge the reasonableness of § 2.4.1.1 therefore passed in

1991. Accord RSR Corp. v. EPA, 102 F.3d 1266, 1269 (D.C.

Cir. 1997) (Section 113(a) bars untimely claim that HRS states

improper toxicity factor for lead). It is some comfort, therefore,

that EPA’s rendering of § 2.4.1.1 seems consistent with the

purpose of the NPL to provide a quick and an inexpensive

means of identifying high priority sites for further study, see

Eagle-Picher, 759 F.2d at 911. 

B. Carus’s Submissions to the EPA

Carus also claims the EPA relied upon insufficient and outdated sampling data obtained by its Illinois counterpart in 1991

and 1993. Carus apparently believes more recent data from

samples collected by GeoSyntec Consulting shows the EPA

erred in listing the Matthiessen & Hegeler site on the NPL.

Before considering this argument we must address two anterior

matters. 

First, because the CERCLA does not specify a standard of

review applicable to this issue, we shall proceed under the

standard prescribed by the Administrative Procedure Act and

will set aside the agency’s action only if it is “arbitrary,

capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in

accordance with law.” 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A); see Eagle-Picher,

759 F.2d at 921 n.80. In applying that standard, we remain

mindful of the “significant deference” we owe to the EPA’s

decision to list a site on the NPL because of the “highly

technical issues involved” and because the NPL serves merely

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as a “rough list of priorities, assembled quickly and

inexpensively.” Bradley Mining Co. v. EPA, 972 F.2d 1356,

1359 (1992). Even so, we must assure ourselves the EPA has

“examined relevant data and has articulated a rational

explanation for its actions.” Eagle-Picher, 759 F.2d at 921. 

 

Second, the EPA contends Carus has forfeited any claim the

agency failed adequately to consider the GeoSyntec data

because Carus failed to say with “reasonable specificity during

the period for public comment,” Mossville Envtl. Action Now v.

EPA, 370 F.3d 1213, 1238 (D.C. Cir. 2004), how those data

would have affected the HRS score for the Matthiessen &

Hegeler site. Although we do not doubt the need for specificity,

we see that Carus made three comments before the EPA with

sufficient specificity that we may consider them on review. 

Carus first argued before the EPA that the documents it

submitted showed the slag piles were “highly resistant to further

leaching.” Neither before the agency nor here, however, does

Carus describe the significance of this purported fact for the

HRS scoring of the site. As far as we are told – and that is by

the EPA – the only arguable connection between resistance to

leaching and the HRS score is whether cadmium, the substance

scored for the surface water migration pathway, was “available

to the pathway.” Yet Carus does not challenge the EPA’s

contention that both direct observation (based upon the aerial

photograph taken in 1988) and chemical analyses (performed in

1991 and 1993), established cadmium from the slag piles had

been released into the Little Vermilion River, and hence was

“available to the pathway.” The toxicity factor value for a

substance available to the pathway pursuant to HRS § 2.4.1.1,

notwithstanding any putative resistance to “further leaching,”

may be used in scoring that pathway. 

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Next, Carus asserts the documents it submitted to the EPA

“establish[ed] risk-based clean-up levels” – whatever that may

mean – and “evaluate[d] possible remedial alternatives,” both

of which contributions the agency apparently failed to consider.

Perhaps so, but Carus did and still does nothing to explain how

either consideration could have affected the HRS score for the

Matthiessen & Hegeler site,see Northside Sanitary Landfill, Inc.

v. Thomas, 849 F.2d 1516, 1519 (D.C. Cir. 1988) (comment to

agency must show alleged mistake “was of possible significance

in the results”). Nor does Carus refute the EPA’s response that

it had no obligation to consider such matters because they are

irrelevant to the decision to list a site on the NPL, see Honeywell

Int’l, 372 F.3d at 445 (EPA not required to explore remedial

options when placing site on NPL). 

Finally, Carus maintains the sampling data that GeoSyntec

prepared and submitted to the EPA shows the agency overstated

the environmental and health risks posed by conditions at the

site. Here Carus cites Linemaster Switch Corp. v. EPA, 938

F.2d 1299 (D.C. Cir. 1991), for the proposition the EPA must

consider more recent data that have been included in the

administrative record. Carus remains fatally silent, however, in

the face of the EPA’s indisputable observation that it did review

the data Carus submitted but found them consistent with its

scoring of the site. See Support Document for the Revised

National Priorities List Final Rule – September 2003, at 1.1-10

(cited in 68 Fed. Reg. at 55,877).

In the EPA’s response to public comments it explained that

the data compiled by GeoSyntec, far from contradicting the data

upon which the agency relied, “confirmed the presence of ...

cadmium and lead in soil samples” taken from around the slag

piles. Id. The EPA also responded to Carus’s claim the

GeoSyntec data showed the levels of hazardous substances

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present in the Little Vermilion River were below applicable

limits; the agency explained that an “observed release” of a

hazardous substance may be established “[e]ven though levels

may be lower than regulatory limits ... if the measured levels are

significantly higher than background levels.” Id. In sum, the

EPA concluded Carus did not present “any specific comments

[showing] that the data used in the HRS scoring [were] incorrect

or why [Geosyntec’s] data would suggest that the site score is

incorrect.” Id. Just so. 

III. Conclusion 

For the foregoing reasons Carus’s petition for review is

Denied.

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