Opinion ID: 215922
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Parties, the VIM Site, and the Litigation History

Text: Defendants Kenneth R. Will, K.C. Industries, LLC, and VIM Recycling, Inc. (collectively VIM) operate a solid waste dump in Elkhart, Indiana. Lead plaintiff William Adkins and other residents of the area brought this suit against VIM in federal district court under RCRA and added various state law claims. VIM's regulatory history and the nature of the three enforcement lawsuits are essential to our disposition of the questions presented. We begin in late 1999, when the Indiana Department of Environmental Management (IDEM) ordered VIM to remove several waste piles and to cease outdoor grinding of solid waste at a different location in Goshen, Indiana. Rather than stopping its activities, VIM moved its operation to nearby Elkhart, a move that would come to upset many Elkhart residents, including the plaintiffs here. By 2004, the Elkhart County Solid Waste Management District Board had received numerous complaints from families and businesses in VIM's vicinity. When IDEM inspected VIM's Elkhart operations in August 2005 and January 2006, it found several ongoing air pollution and solid waste violations. In an attempt to remedy some of VIM's many regulatory violations, IDEM and VIM entered into an Agreed Order on January 16, 2007. Among other things, the Agreed Order required VIM to obtain the required permits for its activities, to stop taking so-called C grade waste to non-permitted facilities, to stop putting any unregulated waste on the berm at the VIM site, to confirm through sampling and analysis that the berm did not cause a threat to human health and the environment, to stop putting any waste onto VIM's C grade piles, and to remove the C grade waste by September 2008. [1] The deadline came and went without compliance. When IDEM inspected VIM's Elkhart operation on October 2, 2008, it found that VIM had not removed the C grade waste as required by the Agreed Order. The next day, on October 3, 2008, IDEM filed suit in the Elkhart Circuit Court to enforce the Agreed Order, particularly with regard to VIM's failure to remove the C grade waste at the site. (We refer to this 2008 suit as the first IDEM lawsuit.) Several Elkhart area residents who would later become plaintiffs in this federal citizen suit first sought to intervene in that first IDEM lawsuit. The intervenors also sought to expand the scope of the complaint in the first IDEM lawsuit beyond the scope of the Agreed Order. The intervenors sought injunctive relief that would have required VIM to cease all operations pertaining to the illegal disposal of all solid waste at the VIM site (not just C grade waste), and to remediate the facility to its condition before VIM took it over. The intervenors also sought damages through common law claims of nuisance, negligence, and trespass. VIM opposed the intervenors' motion to the extent that they raised claims extending beyond the scope of the Agreed Order. VIM argued that the intervenors' claims should be limited to the scope of the first IDEM lawsuit as it was originally filed. The state court agreed with VIM and asked VIM to draw up a proposed intervention order allowing that narrow intervention. In response to this adverse ruling, the intervenors voluntarily withdrew all of their claims outside the scope of the first IDEM lawsuit. They chose instead to proceed in federal court under the RCRA citizen-suit provision to seek broader relief. As required by RCRA section 6972(b), the plaintiffs first sent a Notice of Intent to File a Complaint under RCRA to VIM, IDEM, and the EPA. During the required waiting period, neither the EPA nor IDEM filed a lawsuit (or intervened in or amended the first IDEM suit) to assert the plaintiffs' proposed claims against VIM. The plaintiffs then filed this action in the Northern District of Indiana on October 27, 2009. In their federal complaint, the plaintiffs sought relief under both the violation and the endangerment provisions of RCRA. 42 U.S.C. §§ 6972(a)(1)(A) and (a)(1)(B). They also alleged common law claims of nuisance, trespass, negligence, negligence per se, and gross negligence. The detailed factual-basis allegations of the complaint stretch over 17 pages and 72 paragraphs. Many of those allegations recount IDEM's attempts to regulate VIM's operation and thus focus on the C grade waste. Recognizing that those efforts culminated in the first IDEM lawsuit, the plaintiffs also made allegations based on the other types of waste at the site, particularly the A, B, C & D (construction and demolition) grades, and uncategorized waste. Specifically, the plaintiffs alleged: 146. From July 2000 to the present date, Defendants have handled, transported, stored and processed A waste, B waste, C waste, C & D waste, wastewater treatment plant sludge, and other solid wastes at the VIM site. 147. From July 2000 to the present date, Defendants have constructed berms with solid waste materials at the VIM site. 148. From July 2000 to the present date, Plaintiffs have and continue to experience adverse health impacts, as well as fear for the safety of their persons and properties as a direct and proximate result of VIM's handling, storage, transporting and processing of solid waste at the VIM site. 149. Plaintiffs observe plumes of smoke on a daily and continuous basis coming from internal and smoldering combustion of the various waste piles at the VIM site including the A, B, and C waste piles, and berms made of solid waste. The plaintiffs took care to differentiate their federal claims from the claims the state asserted in the first IDEM lawsuit. They alleged: 164. IDEM's enforcement action seeks only to enforce the [Agreed Order or AO] of January 16, 2007 which required Defendants to remove or properly dispose of C waste that existed at the time of entry of the AO by September 30, 2008. 165. IDEM's enforcement action does not address A or B wastes accumulated before or after entry of the AO or B waste that turned to C waste after entry of the AO. Moreover, the AO does not require removal of berms made of solid waste, A or B wastes accumulated before or after entry of the AO, or B wastes that turned to C wastes after entry of the AO. Thus, the plaintiffs' RCRA allegations are based in part on C grade waste, but they go beyond the C grade waste to include A and B waste. See Complaint ¶ 168. Among other violations, they allege that VIM was consolidating, disposing of, and causing combustion of wood and engineered wood waste (including A, B and C grade waste), construction and demolition waste, and other solid wastes without cover; was operating a non-compliant solid waste disposal facility; was open dumping solid wastes at the site; and was stor[ing], contain[ing], processing and/or dispos[ing] of solid waste at the VIM site in a manner that has and continues to: create a fire hazard, attract vectors, pollute air and water resources, and cause other contamination. The plaintiffs also alleged that VIM violated several Indiana regulations that can be enforced under RCRA's violation provision. Pursuant to RCRA's endangerment provision, the plaintiffs alleged that VIM's handling, transport, processing, and disposal of A, B, and C grade solid waste and the berms of solid waste at the VIM site presented an imminent and substantial danger to health and the environment. In the meantime, IDEM continued to inspect VIM's Elkhart operation, finding ongoing violations that culminated in a second IDEM lawsuit. On December 21, 2009, after the plaintiffs had served their RCRA notice, had waited out the requisite delay period, and had already filed this citizen suit in the federal district court, IDEM filed its second lawsuit in the Elkhart Superior Court. The second IDEM lawsuit alleged that, in violation of state statutes and regulations, VIM had caused or allowed the open dumping of B grade waste on its property and had stored, contained, processed, or disposed of B grade waste in a manner causing a threat to human health or the environment. IDEM sought a preliminary and permanent injunction requiring VIM to immediately cease to cause or allow the deposit and/or dumping of contaminants and solid waste on the Site or any other unpermitted site, and requiring VIM to remove and properly dispose of all B grade waste at the site, to comply with all federal, state, and local laws in doing so, and to submit written documentation to IDEM within 45 days that all B grade waste had been taken to a permitted solid waste management or processing facility. Now fighting three separate lawsuits (the two IDEM suits in state courts and this citizen action in federal court), VIM moved to dismiss this federal lawsuit. VIM argued that the district court did not have federal subject matter jurisdiction under RCRA over the plaintiffs' violation and endangerment claims because IDEM was pursuing the same claims in state court that the plaintiffs' raised in this suit. VIM further argued that the district court should abstain from exercising its jurisdiction based on the abstention doctrines articulated by the Supreme Court in Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943), and Colorado River Water Conservation Dist. v. United States, 424 U.S. 800, 96 S.Ct. 1236, 47 L.Ed.2d 483 (1976). The district court granted VIM's motion, finding that it lacked jurisdiction over the RCRA violation claim and that it should abstain from exercising jurisdiction over all RCRA claims under Burford and Colorado River. The court then declined to exercise supplemental jurisdiction over the state law claims. The plaintiffs have appealed.