Opinion ID: 785944
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: The District Court's Determination of Costs of Compliance

Text: 74
75 The second basis on which ALC asks us to overturn the District Court's calculation of economic benefit is its contention that the District Court erred in calculating the amount of money it would have cost ALC to institute the changes that would have led to compliance with the requirements of its permits. In brief, ALC argues that the numbers the EPA came up with (which were adopted by the Court) and the kinds of solutions it proposed were considerably overpriced, especially considering that, according to ALC, it had already fixed the problems for much less money and could show that the solutions it had implemented already worked. 76 The threshold question is whether, as a matter of law, the District Court must calculate economic benefit using the least costly method of compliance. This question does not appear to have been addressed by any Court of Appeals. Those District Courts that have addressed the issue hold that the calculations should be based on the least costly method of compliance. See, e.g., Gwaltney of Smithfield, 611 F.Supp. at 1563 n. 25 (holding that economic benefit calculations could not be based on a more expensive, permanent solution when a less expensive interim solution had already achieved compliance); United States v. WCI Steel, Inc., 72 F.Supp.2d 810 (N.D.Ohio 1999) (finding credible the defendant's expert testimony regarding possible compliance measures and calculating economic benefit based on significantly less expensive method of compliance than that proposed by the government's expert). We find these decisions persuasive, and hold that economic benefit analysis should be based on the least costly method of compliance. However, contra ALC's contentions, it does not appear to us that the District Court took a different approach.
77 ALC cites to two main instances of alleged miscalculation of benefit. The first, relating to the Vandergrift plant, stems from the District Court's calculation which incorporated a $600,000 project that the government's expert posited would have brought ALC into compliance with the pretreatment permit issued for that site. ALC, however, claims that, in October of 1993, shortly before the Vandergrift violations ceased, it installed and began to operate a diversion tank connected to the discharge piping leading to the Vandergrift facility WWTP outfall. This diversion tank cost no more than $150,000 to buy and install. According to ALC, the pretreatment violations stopped shortly after the installation of the diversion tank although there were two monthly average and four daily maximum violations in November and December 1993, which ALC attributed to start-up problems. ALC contends that starting December 15, 1993, not a single violation occurred. ALC then argues that, in adopting the government's proposed $600,000 project to solve the problem and bring ALC into compliance, the District Court made clearly erroneous findings of fact. 78 There is, however, another side to the story. As noted above, there were several so-called start-up violations after the diversion tank was installed, and ALC cannot claim a clean record until December 15, 1993. ALC claims that the District Court should have used the December 15, 1993 date as the compliance date because that is the last reported pretreatment violation before the WWTP upgrade in August of 1994. However, the government's expert, Gary Amendola, explained that he chose to use August 1994 as the compliance date (as did the District Court) because the diversion tank installed in October 1993 was not sufficient to address the problem at Vandergrift. Amendola explained that the fact that ALC had reported no violations during the first half of 1994 did not establish that the diversion tank was a sufficient compliance measure because the facility had previously operated for months at a time without reporting any violations. The District Court chose to credit the testimony of the government's expert that the diversion tank would not have been adequate to prevent all violations. A decision to credit the expert testimony of one expert witness over another is entitled to deference. See Gen. Elec. Co. v. Joiner, 522 U.S. 136, 143, 118 S.Ct. 512, 139 L.Ed.2d 508 (1997) (holding that a District Court's assessment of expert testimony is to be accorded the deference that is the hallmark of abuse-of-discretion review). Under these circumstances the District Court's findings of fact were not clearly erroneous, and they must therefore be left to stand.
79 The next issue concerns a $476,090 project that the government's expert posited was necessary to bring ALC into compliance for non-contact cooling water violations at Outfall 107. ALC contends that the District Court's economic benefit calculation which adopted that figure was premised on clearly erroneous findings of fact which led to misapplication of the least costly method of compliance legal principle. ALC argues that violations at the outfall were limited to June though October 1994 and that those violations were resolved through various maintenance efforts, including repairing cracks in certain trenches and sumps. The government, however, points out that ALC's brief does not contain any record citation indicating that it presented factual material to the District Court at trial relating to its maintenance efforts, and that to the extent that there is such evidence in the record, the evidence is limited to ALC's own pleadings. Furthermore, the government contends that ALC reported violations long after it alleges that it cured them in October 1994. 80 This difference of opinion as to whether more violations occurred stems from the fact that ALC identifies only one internal monitoring point, Outfall 107, associated with the $476,090 re-lining project. The government expert, Amendola, however, opined that the relining project was required to cure violations associated with Number 90 Anneal and Pickle Line, which discharged through Outfall 007. Outfalls 107 and 207 are internal monitoring points that discharged through Outfall 007. Since ALC reported violations at Outfall 007 through December 1995, long after ALC alleges it cured those violations with maintenance efforts in October 1994, the government contends that the maintenance efforts at Outfall 107 are not enough to carry the day. 81 It is clear that the District Court decided to adopt the government's framework regarding the monitoring and links between these different outfalls. In view of the bona fide evidentiary dispute, its findings were not clearly erroneous and must be upheld.