Opinion ID: 2737138
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Glatfelter

Text: Although PCB discharges from the Bergstrom Mill undisputedly made their way into OU4, Glatfelter has made no attempt to quantify what percentage of the contamination in OU4 it may have caused. Instead, even in relation to its divisibility defense, Glatfelter insists that it caused none of the contamination in OU4. Because the burden to prove divisibility rests on the defendant, Glatfelter is playing an all-ornothing game, and we agree with the district court that it has lost. Glatfelter’s theory of divisibility relied almost entirely upon the expert opinion of Dr. Victor Magar. As part of his analysis, Dr. Magar estimated that only 14,000 kg were discharged into the river from the Bergstrom Mill. In contrast, government estimates ranged from 128,000 to 188,000 kg. To reach his much lower estimate, Dr. Magar first measured the mass of the sludge in the mill’s adjacent landfill, as well as the PCB concentrations in that sludge. He then used company records to establish the efficiency with which solids were removed from Bergstrom’s wastewater and deposited in the landfill, which allowed him to estimate the mass of solids Nos. 13-2436 & 13-2441 31 that remained in Bergstrom’s wastewater and were discharged into the river. Then, assuming that the discharged solids had the same concentration of PCBs as the solids deposited in the landfill, he calculated the mass of PCBs discharged into the river. Relying on other experts, the district court soundly criticized Dr. Magar’s PCB mass estimate for the Bergstrom Mill. As the court noted, the clarifier used to remove solids from Bergstrom’s wastewater would have allowed larger solids to settle out and be removed while leaving smaller particles suspended in the wastewater. Because PCBs adsorb (attach) to the surface of solids, and because smaller particles have higher surface-to-mass ratios, PCB concentrations in masses of smaller particles tend to be higher. Thus, Dr. Magar’s assumption that the PCB concentrations in Bergstrom’s landfill were equal to the concentrations in the solids it discharged into the River was unsound. The district court’s finding on this point was not clearly erroneous. Therefore, we accept the fact that Dr. Magar greatly understated the mass of PCBs discharged into river by Bergstrom, for which Glatfelter is now responsible. Next, Dr. Magar opined that PCBs from the Bergstrom Mill would not have reached OU4 in concentrations above the 1.0 ppm threshold because (1) PCBs that deposited in the downstream part of OU1 generally did so in concentrations below 1.0 ppm, (2) the downstream part of OU1 was similar to OU4 in terms of its depositional properties, and (3) PCB concentrations decline as contaminated sediment moves downstream and mixes with clean sediment. Thus, Dr. Magar thought that PCBs from the Bergstrom Mill 32 Nos. 13-2436 & 13-2441 would have been diluted to concentrations far below 1.0 ppm by the time they reached OU4. However, the district court soundly criticized this aspect of Dr. Magar’s opinion as well. Relying on other experts, the court found that lower OU1 was not nearly as depositional as Dr. Magar claimed. Thus, in the district court’s words, “high-concentration PCB deposits were absent in lower OU1 not because PCB concentrations had already petered out, but because the PCBs simply were not permanently depositing in that part of the river.” This finding was not clearly erroneous. Thus, we accept the fact that Dr. Magar greatly underestimated the concentrations at which PCBs from the Bergstrom Mill would have entered OU4. Consequently, Glatfelter failed to prove that it was not a sufficient cause of at least some of the contamination in OU4, and this alone is enough for us to affirm the district court’s decision on its divisibility defense. But the district court did not stop there. The court also found that even if Glatfelter had proved that it was not a sufficient cause of contamination in OU4, it failed to prove that it was not a necessary cause of such contamination. Glatfelter argues that it could not possibly have been a necessary but insufficient cause of contamination in OU4 and that the district court only reached this conclusion because it failed to grasp how PCB concentrations are calculated. We disagree. Dr. Magar opined that if PCBs from the Bergstrom Mill made their way into OU4 in concentrations less than the remedial action level of 1.0 ppm, they could not have been a necessary cause of the cleanup in OU4 because, as he put it, “This is not an additive process. This would be an averaging process.” Nos. 13-2436 & 13-2441 33 For example, if 30 mg PCBs in 1 kg of suspend- ed solids (30 mg/kg PCBs) were mixed with 1 mg PCBs in 1 kg of suspended solids (1 mg/kg PCBs). The resulting mixture would contain 31 mg PCBs and 2 kg of suspended soils. The mix- ture concentration, which is equal to the mass of PCBs divided by the mass of suspended soils, would be equal to 31 mg PCB/ 2 kg sus- pended soils or 15.5 mg/kg. Thus, the concen- tration is the weighted average of the two sources. Expert Report of Victor Magar, PhD, PE, at 18-19, Sep. 28, 2012. In Dr. Magar’s opinion, this averaging process means that PCBs entering OU4 at a concentration below 1.0 ppm and mixing with other PCB-contaminated solids could never push the combined PCB concentration above 1.0 ppm. We have no qualms with the general proposition that when two masses of PCB-contaminated solids mix, their combined concentration is the mass-weighted average of their separate concentrations. It does not follow, however, that removing the PCBs that came in at a lower concentration increases the average concentration. This is because the solids to which that lower concentration of PCBs would have attached still join the mix, only now they are PCB-free, resulting in a lower average concentration. Dr. Magar’s mistake was ignoring the clean solids that would remain after removing the lower concentration of PCBs. Perhaps this is best illustrated through an example. In his expert report, Dr. Magar expressed the averaging concept 34 Nos. 13-2436 & 13-2441 through the following formula, where C is PCB concentra- (𝐶1 × 𝑇𝑆1 ) + (𝐶2 × 𝑇𝑆2 ) tion in mg/kg and TS is the total solid mass in kg: 𝐷𝑜𝑤𝑛𝑠𝑡𝑟𝑒𝑎𝑚 𝐶𝑜𝑛𝑐𝑒𝑛𝑡𝑟𝑎𝑡𝑖𝑜𝑛 = 𝑇𝑆1 + 𝑇𝑆2 Let us suppose that Party 1 discharges enough PCBs to create a concentration of 1.5 ppm (mg/kg) in 1.0 kg of sediment, and Party 2 discharges enough PCBs to create a concentration of 0.5 ppm (mg/kg) in 1.0 kg of sediment. When these two masses combine, Dr. Magar’s formula yields the follow- (𝐶1 × 𝑇𝑆1 ) + (𝐶2 × 𝑇𝑆2 ) (1.5 × 1.0) + (0.5 × 1.0) ing concentration: = = 1.0 𝑝𝑝𝑚 𝑇𝑆1 + 𝑇𝑆2 1.0 + 1.0 Thus, there are just enough PCBs to require remedial action. Now, let us assume that Party 2 discharged no PCBs, but the sediment to which Party 2’s PCBs would have attached still combines with the sediment to which Party 1’s PCBs have attached. Dr. Magar’s formula then yields the following con- (𝐶1 × 𝑇𝑆1 ) + (𝐶2 × 𝑇𝑆2 ) (1.5 × 1.0) + (0.0 × 1.0) centration: = = 0.75 𝑝𝑝𝑚 𝑇𝑆1 + 𝑇𝑆2 1.0 + 1.0 Thus, remediation is required if Party 2’s PCBs are included, but remediation is not required if Party 2’s PCBs are excluded, even though Party 2’s PCBs entered the mix at a concentration below the 1.0 ppm remedial action level. This goes to show that Dr. Magar’s conclusion that it is impossible to have necessary but insufficient causes does not follow from the principle on which he relied, i.e., that concentrations average rather than add. In sum, Glatfelter failed to prove that the PCB discharges for which it is responsible were not a sufficient, or at least a Nos. 13-2436 & 13-2441 35 necessary, cause of at least some of the contamination in OU4. Therefore, the district court correctly ruled against Glatfelter on its all-or-nothing divisibility defense.