Opinion ID: 3035057
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Bunker Hill Superfund Site

Text: The EPA listed the Bunker Hill Superfund Site (hereinafter “the Box”), a twenty-one square mile area in Shoshone County, Idaho, on its National Priorities List in 1983 as one of the country’s most contaminated sites. Over one hundred years of mining and sixty-five years of smelting activity, as well as various natural and man-made events, had caused widespread contamination in the area. The EPA’s record of decision for the Box explained that, in particular, “[s]oils, surface water, ground water, and air throughout the [s]ite have been contaminated by heavy metals, to varying degrees, through a combination of airborne particulate deposition, alluvial deposition of tailings dumped into the river by mining activity, past waste disposal practices, and contaminant migration from onsite sources.” Section 104 of CERCLA permits the President to respond directly to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances, such as those existing in the Box, by undertaking “reUNITED STATES v. ASARCO INC. 15683 sponse actions” consistent with the National Oil and Hazardous Substances Pollution Contingency Plan (“NCP”). See 40 C.F.R. § 300.1-.86 (1985). Before selecting a response action, however, the NCP requires that the EPA first conduct a remedial investigation and feasibility study, which is designed to “assess site conditions and evaluate alternatives to the extent necessary to select a remedy” that will “eliminate, reduce, or control risks to human health and the environment.” 40 C.F.R. § 300.430(a)(1)-(2). Potential response actions include a “remedial action,” which is a cost-effective, long-term plan for a permanent remedy, and a “removal action,” which is generally a short-term action intended to address only emergency situations. 42 U.S.C. § 9601(24), (23); see ROGER W. FINDLEY & DANIEL A. FARBER, ENVIRONMENTAL LAW 18687 (5th ed. 2000). For purposes of the remedial investigation and feasibility study of the Box, the EPA divided the twenty-one square miles into populated and non-populated areas. The agency eventually issued a ROD for the populated areas in 1991 and a ROD for the non-populated areas in 1992. Taken together, the records of decision supported a remedial action in the Box targeting widespread heavy metal contamination in soils, surface water, and ground water and seeking to reduce associated risks to human health, particularly children’s exposure to lead. Between 1992 and 1994, Plaintiffs engaged in settlement negotiations with potentially responsible parties (“PRPs”), including Defendants, after filing a complaint against them to recover costs for the EPA’s remedial action in the Box.2 The 2 While sections 106 and 107 of CERCLA authorize the Attorney General to sue responsible parties who have contributed to contaminating a Superfund site, including past, remote, and future owners, operators, generators, arrangers, and transporters, section 122(a) of CERCLA encourages settlement agreements between the United States and PRPs for expediting effective remedial action and minimizing litigation. See FINDLEY & FARBER, supra, at 202. The State of Idaho joined the complaint against Defendants pursuant to relevant state law and section 107 of CERCLA. See 42 U.S.C. § 9607. 15684 UNITED STATES v. ASARCO INC. parties agree that at the time of their negotiations the EPA expressed its intent not to use CERCLA remedial authority to clean up contamination (or “superfund” the area) outside the Box. Instead, it planned to address the environmental contamination in that area through the Coeur d’Alene Basin Restoration Project (“the Basin Restoration Project”), a costeffective, long-term approach, not a “response action,” that was designed to be a public and private venture among local, state, and federal agencies, the Coeur d’Alene Tribe, and private property owners in the Basin (including Defendants). In 1994, the District Court entered the parties’ settlement as a consent decree in which Defendants, among other PRPs, agreed to perform certain cleanup actions in the Box’s populated areas and Plaintiffs assumed primary responsibility for the Box’s non-populated areas. The parties agree that the United States explicitly reserved in the decree the right to pursue PRPs for “liability arising from the past, present, or future disposal, release, or threat of release of Waste Materials outside the Site.” Consent Decree (CD) ¶ 90(2). In addition, no party disputes that, under the decree, the United States “retain[ed] all authority and reserve[d] all rights to take any and all response actions authorized by law.” CD ¶ 93 (emphasis added). Moreover, the parties recognize that the decree limited the United States’ covenant not to sue the PRPs strictly to the Box. CD ¶ 84a.