Opinion ID: 3035057
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Modification of Consent Decree

Text: In March 1996, nearly two years after the District Court had approved the consent decree for the Box, the United States, at the request of the EPA, the Department of the Interior, and the Department of Agriculture, filed an action to recover from PRPs, among other things, damages under CERCLA for injury to natural resources in the heavily mined Basin, that is, the area outside the Box.3 In early 1998, the 3 The State of Idaho is not a party to the Basin litigation. It nonetheless asserts that the consent decree for the Box should remain distinct from the unresolved disputes concerning the Basin. UNITED STATES v. ASARCO INC. 15685 EPA publicly announced that it would be conducting a remedial investigation and feasibility study of the Basin. Three years later, in January 2001, Defendants filed a motion in the District Court of Idaho to modify the consent decree, contending that the EPA’s decision to superfund the Basin constituted an unanticipated change in factual circumstances that made compliance with the Box decree substantially more onerous. In particular, Defendants alleged that the EPA had repeatedly assured them that it would not expand the Superfund site from the Box to the Basin.4 Despite recognizing that the decree specifically reserved the United States’ right to superfund the Basin, the District Court relied on oral and written assurances that the EPA had allegedly given Defendants prior to and after entering the decree to find that the latter did not anticipate the contested action. The Court found that between 1991 and early 1998, the EPA consistently stated “that actions outside the Box would be coordinated with the broader objectives of the Coeur d’Alene Restoration Project . . . and regulatory tools other than remedial authority under CERCLA.” The Court explained that “[t]his finding [was] based on repeated representations and references to the ‘multi-media approach’ in letters, in the 1991 and 1992 RODs . . . in conversations with EPA management, in the [Basin Restoration Project] Framework document and in Department of Justice pleadings to the Court in this case and in United States v. Asarco, et al., 96-122-N-EJL.” On September 30, 2001, the Court held that modification of the decree was appropriate because enforcement of the decree as it stood would drive 4 We note that Defendants previously challenged the EPA’s expansion of the Superfund site boundaries from the Box to the Basin in United States v. Asarco Inc., 214 F.3d 1104 (9th Cir. 2000). We held there that while the EPA gave adequate notice of the expansion, the D.C. Circuit had exclusive jurisdiction to rule on any challenge to the expanded boundaries. Id. at 1107. Defendants subsequently filed a notice with this Court indicating that they were not filing an appeal in the D.C. Circuit, in effect abandoning their formal challenge to the EPA’s expansion of the Superfund site boundary lines. 15686 UNITED STATES v. ASARCO INC. “the mining industry out of business” and “bleed[ ] the companies to death.” The District Court nevertheless withheld deciding on actual modifications to the consent decree until the EPA had completed the Basin’s remedial investigation and feasibility study and ROD. The EPA issued the ROD in September 2002, and the Court issued an order on November 18, 2003 reducing Defendants’ financial obligation under the decree by $7 million.5 The Court subsequently approved the parties’ allocation of the $7 million in an April 16, 2004 order. Plaintiffs timely appealed the Court’s last two orders, which this Court has consolidated for purposes of this appeal.