Opinion ID: 1236784
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Analysis of Railroads' and Shell's CERCLA Liability

Text: We now proceed to apply these fairly straightforward principles to the circumstances of this case. Here, the Railroads were found to be PRPs under § 9607(a)(2), as the owners of a facility at which . . . hazardous substances were disposed of, and Shell was found to be a PRP under § 9607(a)(3), as a person who arranged for disposal . . . of hazardous substances owned or possessed by such person. The first question we address is whether the Railroads and Shell are liable for all the cleanup costs at the Arvin site, or, as the district court held, only some of them. The second question, addressed later, is whether Shell is liable for any of the harm, as an arranger.

Because we have not heretofore faced a CERCLA apportionment issue directly, there is no Ninth Circuit precedent concerning the standard of appellate review for such an issue. Three circuits have addressed the question, and two separate approaches have emerged. The Fifth and Eighth Circuits look first to whether there is a reasonable basis for apportioning the harm, an inquiry they consider a question of law reviewed de novo. See Hercules, 247 F.3d at 718-19; Bell Petroleum, 3 F.3d at 896, 902. These two circuits then examine, as a question of fact reviewed under the clearly erroneous standard, precisely how damages are to be divided. See Hercules, 247 F.3d at 718 (holding that actual apportionment of damages is a question of fact); Bell Petroleum, 3 F.3d at 896 (same). In contrast, the Sixth Circuit considers divisibility as a whole a factual matter of causation, reviewed entirely under the clearly erroneous standard. Township of Brighton, 153 F.3d at 318 n. 13. This view, however, disregards a distinction between conceptual divisibility and actual allocation that we find both persuasive and useful. The latter inquiry can involve the resolution of credibility issues and of conflicting evidence, while the former ordinarily does not. We believe the most appropriate approach, and the one we therefore adopt here, is the one adopted in Hercules and Bell Petroleum, with a refinement suggested by Judge Parker's dissent in Bell Petroleum. Judge Parker thought that the majority confused the distinction between the  legal burden that the single harm at issue caused is of a type capable of apportionment, and the factual burden of proving the amount of harm attributable to a particular party. Bell Petroleum, 3 F.3d at 909 (Parker, J., concurring in part and dissenting in part). We are not sure that there was any such confusion. Rather, an aspect of clear error review is the legal determination whether the party with the burden of proof met that burden; if the party did not and the district court nonetheless ruled for it, then the district court clearly erred. See Lloyd v. Schlag, 884 F.2d 409, 415 (9th Cir.1989) (reviewing whether the district court committed clear error by holding that [plaintiff] had not met his burden of proof). Thus, although the harm may be capable of apportionment, the harm may not actually be apportionable in the particular case as a factual matter, given the evidence produced, because the party advocating apportionment has not come forward with the minimum showing needed to meet its burden of proof as to the proper division of liability. We therefore proceed as follows: We inquire, first, whether the particular harm at issue in the case is theoretically capable of apportionment  i.e., whether it could ever be apportioned or whether it is, by nature, too unified for apportionment. That question is one of law, reviewed de novo. Cf. Taisho Marine & Fire Ins. Co. v. M/V Sea-Land Endurance, 815 F.2d 1270, 1274 (9th Cir.1987). Second, we review for clear error whether the defendant submitted evidence sufficient to establish a reasonable basis for the apportionment of liability, taking into account that the burden of proof is on the party seeking allocation, as well as the district court's actual division of liability. There is no dispute here on the first, purely legal question  whether the harm is capable of apportionment. See Bell Petroleum, 3 F.3d at 896; Chem-Dyne, 572 F.Supp. at 810. Some of the contamination on the B & B site occurred before the Railroads' parcel became part of the facility, and the original B & B site is distinct from the portion leased from the Railroads. Only some of the toxic substances were stored on the Railroads' parcel, and only some of the water on the facility washed over the Railroads' site. As to Shell, only some of the toxic substances spilled on the facility were sold by the company. The different toxic substances vary in their likelihood to leak and in the manner and speed in which they disseminate in ground water. So, conceptually, the contamination traceable to the Railroads and Shell, with perfect information, would be allocable, as would be the cost of cleaning up that contamination. The questions, then, are whether the district court clearly erred in finding that the Railroads and Shell established a reasonable basis for apportionment, Bell Petroleum, 3 F.3d at 901, and whether, having so found, the district court properly apportioned the harm. We recognize that the district court at one point stated that the Railroads failed to meet their burden of proof as to divisibility. But its overall ruling was necessarily to the contrary, as the court also stated that it independently found [in the record] a reasonable basis for apportionment in spite of the parties['] presentations. Thus, while the district court rejected both defendants' theories as to divisibility, it used record evidence it found persuasive to determine apportionment. Whether the district court was correct in this regard is, as we have noted, part of the review of the factual decision regarding apportionment, discussed hereafter. The burden of proof issue thus melds with the merits of the apportionment issue, rather than barring us from considering it.
As we have established, if apportionment is to be allowed under the Restatement approach, there must be a reasonable basis for calculating the connection between the Railroads' PRP status and the relevant harms. Again, the harm we consider is the contamination on the Arvin site. Where, as for the Railroads, the PRPs' responsibility under the statute derives solely from their status as landowner, the PRPs can establish divisibility by demonstrating that discrete portions of the contamination are in no respect traceable to land they owned at the time of the toxic disposal. Here, the district court's severability analysis  after 191 pages of an amended opinion that included over 80 pages of factual findings  ultimately relied on the simplest of considerations: percentages of land area, time of ownership, and types of hazardous products. Although we do not fault the district court's factfinding  its numbers are mostly correct  its legal conclusion that these three factors alone suffice to support apportionment cannot stand. [26] We address each factor below to show why.
The only court of appeals case that has fully addressed divisibility of landowner liability takes a relatively strict approach to apportionment on the basis of land area. In United States v. Rohm and Haas Co., 2 F.3d 1265 (3d Cir.1993), the most analogous CERCLA divisibility case to this one, the Third Circuit held, as do we, that simply showing that one owns only a portion of the facility in question is [not] sufficient to warrant apportionment. Id. at 1280. Like this case, Rohm and Haas concerned a landowner PRP and changes in landownership over time. Although the Third Circuit's divisibility analysis is fairly cursory, its reluctance to apportion landowner liability on the basis of land boundaries is informative. Rohm and Haas indicates that the mere percentage of land owned by one PRP relative to the entire facility cannot alone be a basis for apportionment, as it does not provide a minimally reliable basis for tracing the proportion of leakage, contamination, or cleanup costs associated with the entire parcel. Contrary to Rohm and Haas, the district court's analysis gave star billing to the percentage of land ownership, even in a unified facility. [27] We agree with Rohm and Haas that this approach, seemingly straightforward though it is, fails in most circumstances to comport with the reasonable basis test, as the facts of this case illustrate. The Arvin site was a single facility. CERCLA premises landowner liability on ownership of a facility, not on ownership of a certain parcel of land that is part of a facility. The operations on the site were dynamic, with fertilizer rigs stored on the Railroad parcel and filled up on the B & B parcel. Empty pesticide cans were stored on the Railroad parcel before they were crushed and disposed of. After the 1978 windstorm, tanks were stored all over the facility, including on the Railroad parcel. A simple calculation of land ownership does not capture any data that reflect this dynamic, unitary operation of the single Arvin facility. In addition, the synergistic use of different parts of the Arvin site makes division based on percentage of land ownership particularly untenable. The record shows that B & B leased the Railroad parcel to accommodate its expanding operations. The Railroad parcel added an unquantifiable and perhaps exponential amount to B & B's soil contamination. Were the Railroad parcel not part of the facility, there would have been less overall storage capacity. One can assume that a smaller amount of toxic chemicals would have been delivered to, and spilled on, the Arvin site. The fertilizer rigs, for example, were stored almost exclusively on the Railroad parcel. Had that parcel not been available, less fertilizer might have been delivered to  and leaked onto  the Arvin parcel. As these descriptions suggest, nothing in the record supports a conclusion that the leakage of contaminants that ended up on the B & B parcel occurred on each parcel in proportion to its size. Instead, given the circumstances of this case, more pertinent comparisons would be the proportion of the amount of chemicals stored, poured from one container to another, or spilled on each parcel. For example, were adequate records kept, it would be possible to estimate the amount of leakage attributable to activities on the Railroad parcel, how that leakage traveled to and contaminated the soil and groundwater under the Arvin parcel, and the cost of cleaning up that contamination. But none of this data is in the record. It may well be that such information is, as a practical matter, not available for periods long in the past, when future environmental cleanup was not contemplated. Unlike records concerning the amount of toxic chemicals produced by a given operator of a facility, records that separate out, with any precision, the amount of toxic chemicals stored on one part of a facility as opposed to another would have had little utility to B & B, the operator of the facility, and none to the Railroads, the owners of the parcel. This observation is true in spades for the more directly pertinent data, such as the amount of leakage on the Railroad parcel, the amount of that leakage that flowed onto the B & B parcel, and the amount of that residue that remained as contamination under the B & B parcel when the cleanup began. So the failure to keep these records is quite understandable. But these practical considerations cannot justify a meat-axe approach to the divisibility issue, premised on percentages of land ownership, as a means of adjusting for the difficulties of proving divisibility with precision when PRP status is based on land ownership alone. Such an approach would be tantamount to a disagreement with the imposition of no-fault land ownership liability. Congress, however, created precisely such liability, placing the responsibility to pay for environmental cleanup on parties, such as the Railroads, that profited from the circumstances giving rise to the contamination so that the taxpayers are not left holding the tab. The risk of lack of adequate information for meaningful division of harm therefore must rest on the responsible parties, even when that information is extremely hard to come by.
Just as the district court's land area calculations did not correspond to the harms in this case, its simple fraction based on the time that the Railroads owned the land cannot be a basis for apportionment. The fraction it chose assumes constant leakage on the facility as a whole or constant contamination traceable to the facility as a whole for each time period; no evidence suggests that to be the case. Again, if adequate information were available, it would make sense to eliminate the Railroads' liability for the period before B & B leased the Railroad parcel. See, e.g., Rohm and Haas, 2 F.3d at 1280. The evidentiary vacuum concerning the amount of contamination traceable to the pre-lease period, however, precludes any such calculation here.
While many of the district court's calculations were factually correct but legally insufficient, its decision to assign a two-thirds fraction to represent the present types of hazardous products contains a basic factual error. All three chemicals were on the Railroad parcel at some time. There is no evidence as to which chemicals spilled on the parcel, where on the parcel they spilled, or when they spilled. Yet, there is evidence that there may well have been leakage on the Railroad parcel of D-D, the chemical the district court excluded in its calculations. Given the record, the district court clearly erred in its attempt to rely on the proportion of hazardous products present on the Railroad parcel.
It will often be the case that a landowner PRP will not be able to prove in any detail the degree of contamination traceable to activities on its land. A landowner PRP need not be involved at all in the disposal of hazardous chemicals and so will often have no information concerning that disposal or its impact. The net result of our approach to apportionment of liability, consequently, may be that landowner PRPs, who typically have the least direct involvement in generating the contamination, will be the least able to prove divisibility. And contribution is not a complete panacea since it frequently will be difficult for defendants to locate a sufficient number of additional, solvent parties. O'Neil v. Picillo, 883 F.2d 176, 179 (1st Cir.1989). While the result may appear to fault a landowner PRP for failing to keep records proving the minor connection of its land to the contamination on the facility as a whole, CERCLA is not a statute concerned with allocation of fault. Instead, CERCLA seeks to distribute economic burdens. Joint and several liability, even for PRPs with a minor connection to the contaminated facility, is the norm, designed to assure, as far as possible, that some entity with connection to the contamination picks up the tab. Apportionment is the exception, available only in those circumstances in which adequate records were kept and the harm is meaningfully divisible. In sum, although most of the numbers the district court used were sufficiently exact, they bore insufficient logical connection to the pertinent question: What part of the contaminants found on the Arvin parcel were attributable to the presence of toxic substances or to activities on the Railroad parcel? We therefore reject the district court's apportionment calculation and hold that the Railroads have failed to prove any reasonable basis for apportioning liability for the costs of remediation.
Shell's contribution to the contamination of the Arvin site is easier to isolate than that of the Railroads', as it involved ascertainable pollutants entering the soil in a specific way. Shell thus had a greater prospect of succeeding on divisibility than did the Railroads, as there is some volumetric basis for comparing its contribution to the total volume of contamination on the Arvin site. Nonetheless, the evidence actually produced was insufficient to allow even a rough approximation of the contamination remaining on the facility, either directly or through the presumption that the pro rata cost of remediating contamination is likely to be equivalent to a PRP's pro rata share of contamination. Indeed, Shell produced only evidence concerning leakage. Such leakage or disposal evidence cannot suffice in the present circumstances as a basis for apportioning the harm in question. As we have explained, contamination  as distinct from leakage  is the necessary consideration. Where there is disposal of multiple contaminants, courts have demanded a showing [of] a relationship between waste volume, the release of hazardous substances, and the harm at the site. Monsanto, 858 F.2d at 172. Factors such as relative toxicity, migratory potential, and synergistic capacity of the hazardous substances are relevant to demonstrating this relationship. Id. at 172 n. 26. Alternatively, volumetric calculations of contaminating chemicals  those remaining in the environment and requiring cleanup  could be sufficiently specific for apportionment. See Hercules, 247 F.3d at 719; Bell Petroleum, 3 F.3d at 903. But Shell provided no evidence regarding such factors. It thus failed to prove whether its leaked chemicals contaminated the soil in any specific proportion as compared to other chemicals spilled at the site. See United States v. Agway, Inc., 193 F.Supp.2d 545, 549 (N.D.N.Y.2002) (noting that defendants whose products have become commingled in the soil face an uphill battle in attempting to demonstrate that volumetric contribution is a reasonable basis for apportioning liability of a single harm). To fill these evidentiary gaps, the district court assumed equal contamination and cleanup cost from all the chemicals' leakage. This methodology entirely failed to account for the possibility that leakage of one chemical might contribute to more contamination than leakage of another, because of their specific physical properties. Similarly, the cost of cleanup depends upon which contaminants are present; some contaminants are more expensive than others to extract from the soil. Moreover, even as an approximation of leakage, the district court's calculations were too speculative to support apportionment. Chem-Nuclear is informative in this regard. In Chem-Nuclear, the defendant disposed of drums of hazardous waste at several facilities. 292 F.3d at 255. At least eighty drums found at a single site were attributable to the defendant. Id. The defendant could not prove, however, that it was responsible only for those eighty drums, and therefore was not entitled to apportionment. Id. at 259-61. Although the defendant provided evidence supporting inferences regarding where its drums went, the court refused to accept these inferences as sufficient proof. Id. at 260. Here, the court estimated the volume of Shell's chemicals that leaked from each transfer based on data samples that do not readily extrapolate to total leakage over the entire twenty-three-year period that Shell supplied B & B with D-D. The court used figures from only six years of B & B's purchases of Shell D-D to calculate the average D-D transferred at the Arvin site each year, yet provided no basis for assuming equal purchases each year. The court then based its estimate of the amount of D-D spilled during each transfer on guesses by witnesses. [28] Also, although D-D was known to leak when sight gauges on D-D rigs broke, the court had no evidence of how much D-D leaked under these circumstances and, therefore, did not add any quantity for sight gauge leakage into the calculation. Even if each of these estimates alone might have been reasonable, the resulting combined estimate is too speculative to serve as an accurate basis for ascertaining leakage, let alone contamination or the costs of cleaning up the contamination. [29] Again, Shell's harm was capable of apportionment. Shell could have provided data showing the volume of chemicals shipped to B & B every year, or more precise estimates of the average volume of leaked chemicals during the transfer process. Data connecting the properties of the various chemicals leaked at the site to the likelihood that they contributed to the contamination could have been presented and considered. But the record before us provides none of that information, most likely because Shell put its eggs in the no-liability basket. In the end, the district court's apportionment analysis with regard to Shell came closer to meeting the legal standard than the method it used with respect to the Railroads. We hold, nonetheless, that on the facts of this case as the district court found them, there was no reasonable basis for apportioning the pertinent harm caused by Shell.
Under CERCLA, any person who by contract, agreement, or otherwise arranged for disposal or treatment, or arranged with a transporter for transport for disposal or treatment, of hazardous substances owned or possessed by such person is liable. § 9607(a)(3). Shell claims that (1) the district court applied the wrong legal standard in determining whether Shell was an arranger under § 9607(a); (2) the useful product doctrine precludes imposition of arranger liability on Shell; (3) Shell lacked ownership and control over the chemicals at the time of the transfers and thus the district court could not find that it had arranged them; and (4) because D-D evaporates or disperses rather than remaining in toxic form in the soil, the district court erred when it determined that Shell contributed to the groundwater contamination. We reject these contentions and affirm the district court's ruling on the arranger issue. We review the district court's interpretation of CERCLA to determine the legal standard for arranger liability as a question of law, reviewed de novo. Carson Harbor Vill., 270 F.3d at 870. We review the district court's factual determinations regarding Shell's operations for clear error. W. Prop. Serv. Corp. v. Shell Oil Co., 358 F.3d 678, 685 (9th Cir.2004).
CERCLA does not define arrange[]. We have avoided giving the term arranger too narrow an interpretation to avoid frustrating CERCLA's goal of requiring that companies responsible for the introduction of hazardous waste into the environment pay for remediation. Pakootas v. Teck Cominco Metals, Ltd., 452 F.3d 1066, 1081 (9th Cir.2006); Cadillac Fairview/Cal., Inc. v. United States, 41 F.3d 562, 565 n. 4 (9th Cir.1994) (per curiam) ( citing with approval United States v. Aceto Agric. Chems. Corp., 872 F.2d 1373, 1380 (8th Cir.1989)); see also Jones-Hamilton Co. v. Beazer Materials & Servs., Inc., 973 F.2d 688, 694-95 (9th Cir.1992) (discussing Aceto, 872 F.2d at 1380). Accordingly, we have recognized, in addition to direct arranger liability, a broader category of arranger liability, see United States v. Shell Oil Co., 294 F.3d 1045, 1054-55 (9th Cir.2002), in which disposal of hazardous wastes is a foreseeable byproduct of, but not the purpose of, the transaction giving rise to PRP status. Direct arranger liability  also referred to as `traditional' direct arranger liability  involves transactions in which the central purpose of the transaction is disposing of hazardous wastes. See id. ; see, e.g., Cadillac Fairview, 41 F.3d at 563-65 (involving rubber companies that transferred contaminated styrene to Dow Chemical for reprocessing); Catellus Dev. Corp. v. United States, 34 F.3d 748, 749-50 (9th Cir.1994) (involving a company that sold used automotive batteries to a lead reclamation plant). In contrast, broader arranger liability involves transactions that contemplate disposal as a part of, but not the focus of, the transaction; the arranger is either the source of the pollution or manages its disposal. See Shell Oil, 294 F.3d at 1058. In the broader arranger liability cases, such as Shell Oil, we examined the connection between the alleged arranger transaction and the disposal and decided whether the transaction necessarily constituted an arrangement for disposal of hazardous substances, whatever immediate form it may have taken. These broader arranger cases can involve situations, like the present one, in which the alleged arrangers did not contract directly for the disposal of hazardous substances but did contract for the sale or transfer of hazardous substances, which were then disposed of. See, e.g., Fla. Power & Light Co. v. Allis Chalmers Corp., 893 F.2d 1313, 1315, 1318 (11th Cir.1990) (involving purchaser and recycler that sued manufacturer of transformers for cleanup costs from later disposal); Mathews v. Dow Chemical Co., 947 F.Supp. 1517, 1519-20 (D.Colo.1996) (involving neighbors of chemical company who sued manufacturer of paint thinner for contamination resulting from packaging paint thinner); Courtaulds Aerospace, Inc. v. Huffman, 826 F.Supp. 345, 347-48, 353-54 (E.D.Cal.1993) (involving neighbor of smelting plant who sued companies that contracted with plant for burning and smelting of copper wire for resulting contamination). There are no Ninth Circuit cases in this category. [30] The inclusion of such circumstances within the arranger concept, however, accords with the statutory language and structure as a whole. To be an arranger, one must arrange[] for disposal or treatment, or arrange[ ] with a transporter for transport for disposal or treatment, of hazardous substances . . . . § 9607(a)(3). CERCLA's definition of disposal, in turn, includes the discharge, deposit, injection, dumping, spilling, leaking, or placing of any solid waste or hazardous waste into or on any land or water so that such solid waste or hazardous waste or constituent thereof may enter the environment or be . . . discharged into any waters, including ground waters. § 6903(3) (referred to by § 9601(29)). That disposal includes such unintentional processes as leaking indicates that disposal need not be purposeful. See Carson Harbor Vill., 270 F.3d at 880 (holding that leaking may not require affirmative. . . conduct (internal quotation marks omitted) (quoting and adopting interpretation of United States v. CDMG Realty Co., 96 F.3d 706, 714 (3d Cir. 1996))). Thus, an entity can be an arranger even if it did not intend to dispose of the product. Arranging for a transaction in which there necessarily would be leakage or some other form of disposal of hazardous substances is sufficient.
While adopting a generally expansive view of arranger liability, we have refused to hold manufacturers liable as arrangers for selling a useful product containing or generating hazardous substances that later were disposed of. See, e.g., 3550 Stevens Creek Assocs. v. Barclays Bank of Cal., 915 F.2d 1355, 1362-65 (9th Cir.1990). As Stevens Creek and other useful product cases recognize, liability cannot extend so far as to include all manufacturers of hazardous substances, on the theory that there will have to be disposal of the substances some time down the line, after it is used as intended. See, e.g., Stevens Creek, 915 F.2d at 1362-65 (refusing to hold manufacturer liable for costs of removing asbestos from building); Fla. Power & Light, 893 F.2d at 1318-19 (refusing to hold manufacturer of transformers liable for subsequent release of chemicals upon disposal of transformers). Also, the asserted liability in useful product cases generally involved only the normal use of those chemicals. See, e.g., Jordan v. S. Wood Piedmont Co., 805 F.Supp. 1575, 1577 (S.D.Ga.1992) (involving the sale of chemicals to treat wood and the contamination from the wood treatment process); Edward Hines Lumber Co. v. Vulcan Materials Co., 685 F.Supp. 651, 653 (N.D.Ill. 1988) (same). The useful product cases have no applicability where, as here, the sale of a useful product necessarily and immediately results in the leakage of hazardous substances. In that circumstance, the leaked portions of the hazardous substances are never used for their intended purpose. See Zands v. Nelson, 779 F.Supp. 1254, 1262 (S.D.Cal.1991) (stating that gasoline is no longer a useful product after it leaks into, and contaminates, the soil); see also Aceto, 872 F.2d at 1381 (rejecting application of the useful product doctrine where waste is generated and disposed of contemporaneously with the process (emphasis added)). Here, although Shell sold B & B a useful product, leakage of some of that product before B & B could use it was both inherent in the transfer process arranged by Shell and contemporaneous with that process. [31] Shell arranged for delivery of the substances to the site by its subcontractors; was aware of, and to some degree dictated, the transfer arrangements; knew that some leakage was likely in the transfer process; and provided advice and supervision concerning safe transfer and storage. Disposal of a hazardous substance was thus a necessary part of the sale and delivery process. Put another way, the district court did not assign arranger liability to Shell for contamination resulting from the application of Shell's useful products to the soil as fertilizers or fumigants, or for disposal of contaminated soil after the products were used. Instead, the district court assigned arranger liability on the portion of product that never made it to the fields for its intended use but was disposed of prior to use. Because Shell's liability here stems from the leaked chemicals rather than the fertilizer that was used as fertilizer, the useful product doctrine is not applicable.
Much of the district court's analysis relies on the factual determination that spills would necessarily occur during the transfer of Shell's chemicals to B & B. Shell maintains that this finding was inadequate, because Shell did not itself transport the chemicals or participate in transferring the chemicals to B & B's containers. Central to this contention is Shell's insistence that it lacked ownership and control of the chemicals at the time of transfer and so could not be an arranger. We do not agree that the district court's findings about Shell's involvement were insufficient to support arranger liability. There was evidence before the district court that: (1) Spills occurred every time the deliveries were made; (2) Shell arranged for delivery and chose the common carrier that transported its product to the Arvin site; (3) Shell changed its delivery process so as to require the use of large storage tanks, thus necessitating the transfer of large quantities of chemicals and causing leakage from corrosion of the large steel tanks; (4) Shell provided a rebate for improvements in B & B's bulk handling and safety facilities and required an inspection by a qualified engineer; (5) Shell regularly would reduce the purchase price of the D-D, in an amount the district court concluded was linked to loss from leakage; and (6) Shell distributed a manual and created a checklist of the manual requirements, to ensure that D-D tanks were being operated in accordance with Shell's safety instructions. The parties vigorously dispute whether, given these facts, Shell owned the pesticide during the transfer and controlled the transfer process. Although the district court addressed these questions and resolved them against Shell, we do not enter this controversy. The text of the statute does not require that the arranger own the hazardous wastes, either at the time the arranger arranged for the transaction or at the time of transfer of ownership. See Pakootas, 452 F.3d at 1081. Indeed, to require ownership at the time of disposal would make it too easy for a party, wishing to dispose of a hazardous substance, to escape by a sale its responsibility to see that the substance is safely disposed of. Catellus, 34 F.3d at 752. Nor is control a statutory requirement, Cadillac Fairview, 41 F.3d at 565, although it has been viewed as a pertinent consideration in cases quite different from this one. Where an owner of hazardous substances directly arranges for disposal  by, for example, using a hazardous substance disposal company  that owner is plainly an arranger even if it has nothing more to do with disposal. See, e.g., Catellus, 34 F.3d at 752. In broader arranger liability cases, however, we have tended to view control as a crucial element in determining whether the party arranged for disposal. Shell Oil, 294 F.3d at 1055. We also have viewed ownership of hazardous substances at the time of disposal as an important factor in nontraditional, indirect arranger liability cases. See Jones-Hamilton, 973 F.2d at 695 ( relying on Aceto, 872 F.2d at 1380). None of these cases, however, indicates that ownership or control at the time of transfer are the sine qua non of nontraditional arranger liability. Instead, ownership and control at time of disposal are useful indices or clues toward the end of look[ing] beyond defendants' characterizations to determine whether a transaction in fact involves an arrangement for the disposal of a hazardous substance. Aceto, 872 F.2d at 1381. In Shell Oil, for example, the government never owned the chemicals before disposal occurred, so control over the substances was an important factor in determining whether or not the government could have arranged for disposal. Shell Oil, 294 F.3d at 1057-59. Here, ownership at the time of disposal is not an informative consideration, and control is informative only in light of additional considerations. Unlike in Shell Oil, where the absence of any ownership or control was a clue concerning whether the sales transaction necessarily contemplated disposal as an inherent part of the transaction, Shell here owned the chemicals at the time the sale was entered into. The statute requires nothing more in terms of ownership. We therefore need not determine the precise moment when ownership transferred to B & B. As to the control question, the district court's findings, recited above, demonstrate that Shell had sufficient control over, and knowledge of, the transfer process to be considered an arranger, within the meaning of CERCLA, for the disposal of the chemicals that leaked.
Shell, finally, contends that the court erred when it determined that it contributed to the groundwater contamination, maintaining that D-D evaporates or disperses rather than remaining in toxic form in the soil. The district court's analysis on this issue is factually complex and based on several weeks of testimony. The district court made specific findings that D-D can indeed enter groundwater. Those findings are based on the testimony of experts whom the court found persuasive. In light of the complexity of the science and the substantial expert evidence supporting the finding, the district court's determination was not clearly erroneous.