Opinion ID: 779912
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Proceedings Before the Master

Text: 12 Through the Master's mediation efforts, a few more third-party defendants settled the Coalitions' contribution claims against them. Thus, when the Master's mediation efforts concluded, only a handful of third-party defendants remained in the contribution action, including defendants the Towns of Hamden, Middlebury, Orange, Seymour and Westport and the City of New Haven (collectively, the Municipal Defendants), and defendant-appellee the Borough of Naugatuck. Accordingly, the Master proceeded to the merits of the Coalitions' contribution claims against these parties. 5 13 The Master held an evidentiary hearing over a six-month period, during which 41 witnesses testified and over 500 evidentiary exhibits were introduced. We summarize the testimony of the parties' key witnesses below. 14 The Coalitions relied extensively on the testimony of Dr. Kirk W. Brown, a Professor of Soil and Crop Sciences at Texas A & M University, to support their claim that the Municipal Defendants' MSW contained hazardous substances that were eventually released into dump leachate. Dr. Brown testified that MSW typically contains partially-spent containers of common household and industrial products, the contents of which contain some hazardous substances. According to Dr. Brown, the hazardous components of such products are eventually released from their containers and find their way into leachate at landfills. He compared the contaminants of concern which the EPA said were in the dump leachate at both landfills with the hazardous substances typically found in MSW. Dr. Brown concluded that hazardous substances released from the Municipal Defendants' waste were likely a major source of hazardous substances found in leachate at the landfills. He did not undertake a site-specific analysis of the MSW dumped at each of the landfills. Rather, he relied on studies by the EPA and others, which he believed showed that the amount of hazardous substances present in a given town's MSW generally will comport with a national profile. 6 15 Additionally, the LPC and BHC each presented allocation experts who submitted recommended allocation formulas for the court to apply in assessing contribution shares. The LPC elicited testimony from Austin Carey, Esq., an attorney who had participated in the formation of LPC. Carey explained that the LPC members, with the help of a neutral consultant, had created an allocation formula to apportion responsibility for response costs among its members. The LPC's allocation model incorporated the volume of waste each party deposited, adjusted by: (1) a hazard factor designed to account for the relative toxicity of each party's waste and the relative mobility of the hazardous substances contained therein; and (2) compaction and burning factors to account for changes in the waste's volume after it was dumped. 7 Using this model, Carey allocated percentage shares of response costs for Middlebury, Orange and Seymour as 4.72%, 3.41% and 3.22%, respectively. 8 16 As its allocation witness, the BHC presented Richard Lane White, a director of the consulting firm Putnam, Hayes & Bartlett, Inc. (Putnam Hayes), who submitted an expert report allocating response costs among the parties alleged to be liable for response costs at Beacon Heights. The BHC's cost-causation model was based on the volume of waste each party deposited, adjusted by: (1) compaction and burning factors; and (2) a cost-causation factor 9 designed to account for the specific response costs incurred by the party's waste. Using this formula, White allocated the Municipal Defendants' percentage share of response costs for Orange, Seymour, Westport, Hamden, New Haven and Middlebury as 8.9256%, 5.8077%, 32.2511%, 2.1040%, 2.8554% and 1.9640%, respectively. 17 Additionally, the Coalitions sought to establish the volume of waste disposed of by the Municipal Defendants. Among other evidence, they relied on the Municipal Defendants' responses to discovery orders and the testimony of Terrance Murtha, who testified about the Murthas' business practices in hauling and disposing of waste. 18 The Coalitions also presented extensive evidence concerning the costs they incurred cleaning up the landfills. These costs were tremendous: the BHC claimed it spent over $50 million for remediation of Beacon Heights, while the LPC claimed it spent over $30 million for remediation of Laurel Park. 19 The Municipal Defendants countered Dr. Brown's testimony with testimony from Dr. Robert K. Ham, Professor Emeritus of Civil & Environmental Engineering at the University of Wisconsin Madison. Dr. Ham testified generally that: (1) the hazardous substances found in MSW are far less releaseable and mobile than those found in industrial waste; (2) the most releaseable and mobile hazardous substances deposited at the landfills were liquid wastes deposited by Coalition members; (3) the hazardous constituents contained in MSW are released only after their containers decompose, which occurs over a long period of time; and (4) such hazardous constituents will not pose a threat to the environment if they bond with other chemicals present in the landfill and form new, nonhazardous substances before they escape from the landfill. Nevertheless, Dr. Ham conceded that MSW contributed to groundwater contamination at the landfills. 20 Additionally, the Municipal Defendants presented an alternative to the Coalitions' recommended allocation formulas. This they did through testimony from their allocation expert, Muriel Robinette, a Vice President of Haley & Aldrich, Inc. (Haley Aldrich). Not surprisingly, Ms. Robinette advocated apportionment of response costs to the Municipal Defendants in lower percentage than the Coalitions' experts' allocation. Her allocation models, which were substantially similar for each landfill, were based on the total volume of waste dumped by each party, adjusted by compaction, burning, cost-causation, toxicity, mobility and persistence 10 factors. Ms. Robinette allocated percentage shares of response costs at Laurel Park for Middlebury, Seymour and Orange as 1.29%, 0.62% and 0.54%, respectively. She allocated the percentage shares of response costs at Beacon Heights for Orange, Seymour, Westport and Middlebury as 0.3989%, 0.2639%, 1.3576% and 0.0149%, respectively. 11 These lower percentages reflected her view that the hazardous substances in the Municipal Defendants' wastes were not significant drivers of many of the response costs undertaken by the Coalitions. For example, she opined that had MSW alone been deposited in the landfills, a less costly cap would have been required to control leachate, and that groundwater and leachate extraction would not have been required. Nevertheless, she conceded that the amount of waste dumped at a landfill will affect the size and attendant cost of the cap. 21 The Municipal Defendants countered the Coalitions's response cost evidence through, among other things, testimony from Jeffrey A. Klaiber, also a Vice President of Haley & Aldrich. Mr. Klaiber focused his opinion on whether the response costs claimed by the Coalitions were necessary and whether they conformed to the national contingency plan (the NCP) under CERCLA § 107(a)(4)(B). According to him, the BHC's and LPC's recoverable response costs were limited to approximately $20 million and $19 million, respectively. Like Ms. Robinette, he opined that had Beacon Heights and Laurel Park accepted only the Municipal Defendants' MSW, the landfills would have been covered with far less expensive caps.