Opinion ID: 779912
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The BHC's Response Costs

Text: 75 The Municipal Defendants claim the district court erred by failing to articulate its finding on the BHC's response costs. In its First Ruling, the court held that the BHC incurred recoverable response costs totaling $40,664,785.77, despite the BHC's claim to have spent more cleaning up the landfill. The court did not set forth a detailed list of each response cost it found to be recoverable; rather, it addressed only certain response costs, regarding the remaining costs as uncontested. 76 The Municipal Defendants moved for reconsideration of the First Ruling, seeking an articulation of the court's findings as to each recoverable response cost. In response to the Municipal Defendants' motion, the BHC alerted the court that the $40,664,785.77 figure overstated the court's actual allowance of the BHC's response costs. Accordingly, the BHC set forth a two-column table illustrating in one column each cost it claimed in its proposed findings of fact and, in the second column, the deductions, if any, to each cost as per the First Ruling. Using this table, the BHC calculated its recoverable response costs as $39,818,648.26. 77 In its Second Ruling, the court adopted this revised figure, specifically referring the parties to the table provided by the BHC. Additionally, the court appended an unannotated adding tape, intended to reflect the court's correction of its mathematical error. While we agree with the Municipal Defendants that the district court's adding tape was not particularly illuminating, we hold that its findings were sufficiently articulated to put the Municipal Defendants on notice of the response costs allowed. 78 We also note that, except as discussed below, the Municipal Defendants failed to identify on appeal any BHC response cost erroneously allowed by the district court. Instead, the Municipal Defendants invite us to ferret out their objections by sifting through their submissions to the district court. We decline their invitation. 79 Finally, the Municipal Defendants claim, and the BHC concedes, that the district court erred by awarding BHC a lump-sum payment of $4,314,485.00, allocated among the various Municipal Defendants, representing the future discounted contingent operations and maintenance costs for the Beacon Heights site. In Gussack Realty Co. v. Xerox Corp., we held the proper remedy for future response costs is not a present lump-sum payment of anticipated expenses but instead a declaratory judgment award dividing future response costs among responsible parties. 224 F.3d 85, 92 (2d Cir.2000) ( per curiam ); see also 42 U.S.C. § 9613(g)(2) ([T]he court shall enter a declaratory judgment on liability for [future] response costs or damages....). Here, as in Gussack Realty, the district court provided a remedy not available under CERCLA. Gussack Realty, 224 F.3d at 92. Accordingly, we remand the case to the district court for entry of a declaratory judgment consistent with § 9613(g)(2). 80