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Making the Program Faster, Fairer, and More Efficient (Continued)
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Resolving Disputes Outside of Court
Some of the most complex and contested cases can be settled using an outside mediator -- allowing all the parties to spend their time and resources cleaning up sites rather than litigating cases in court.
For example, at the Landfill & Resource Recovery site in Rhode Island, the parties included 18 PRPs, along with the United States and the State of Rhode Island. Both the Federal and State claims were resolved with the help of a Federal district court judge with a settlement that reimbursed the government for 97 percent of its expected costs. The mediated settlement also provided funds to purchase wetlands to expand the Blackstone River Valley National Heritage Center.
At the Auburn Road Landfill site in New Hampshire, a voluntary mediation led to a consent decree that resolved the government's claims against 31 PRPs. The settlers agreed to perform the remedy and to reimburse the United States for its past cleanup costs and future oversight costs. In addition, the settlers are reimbursing the State of New Hampshire and the Town of Londonderry for past cleanup costs and future oversight costs.
Protecting the "Little Guy"
Some Superfund sites have hundreds of PRPs, including small companies (or even individuals) who have contributed only a minor portion of the waste. These small contributors may be dragged into burdensome litigation by the PRPs which were primarily responsible for the contamination. EPA attempts to identify and resolve the liability of these small party contributors early in the process, leading to de micromis and de minimis settlements.
A de micromis party is someone whose contribution of waste is minimal. In fact, the costs of hiring a lawyer, and negotiating a settlement, would dwarf any amount the party could reasonably be expected to contribute to cleanup costs. Many times, the PRPs who contributed a major portion of the waste to a site sue the de micromis parties for contribution. EPA enters into a de micromis settlement with these parties to protect them from such suits.
For example, 47 homeowners who lived around the Raymark Industries site in Connecticut could be seen as de micromis parties since they only contributed household wastes to the site. EPA and the State of Connecticut protected these homeowners from being sued by entering into a settlement where each homeowner paid $1 to be protected from "third party" law suits brought by the major contributors.
A de minimis party has contributed more waste than a de micromis party, but the amount is still insignificant when compared with what has been contributed by some of the major PRPs -- for example, less than 1 percent of the waste at a site. With de minimis parties, EPA has placed a priority on achieving a quick, efficient resolution of their liability to protect them from burdensome litigation.
At the Tulalip Landfill in Washington, EPA settled with 207 de minimis parties very early in the process, resulting in the recovery of approximately $10 million and the identification of PRPs who made major contributions of waste to the site. At the Cherokee Oil Resources site in North Carolina, EPA entered into an early de minimis settlement with over 200 small contributors. Both the de minimis and the major contributors agreed not to sue over 1,000 de micromis parties.
EPA gets the "little guys out" of the Superfund enforcement. Over the years, 460 de minimis settlements have been reached with nearly 23,000 small waste contributors.
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$1 Billion Settlement Reached Redding, California (October 19, 2000) -- The United States and the State of California announced a settlement today with Aventis Crop Sciences USA, Inc. to fund future cleanup costs that could approach $1 billion at the Iron Mountain Mine site. The settlement is one of the largest to be reached with a single private party in the history of the Superfund Program. The agreement will ensure long-term control of more than 95 percent of the releases from the site. This 4,400-acre site, which operated from the 1860s through 1963, is historically the largest point source of toxic metals in the country, and the source of the most acidic mine drainage in the world. Prior to remediation, the mine discharged an average of a ton of toxic metals a day into the Upper Sacramento River, a critical salmon spawning habitat and central feature in the State's water system. Approximately 70,000 people used surface water within 3 miles of the site as their source of drinking water. In 1983, EPA listed the site on the NPL at the State's request. Since then, numerous Federal and State agencies have worked together on this site which has been addressed in six stages starting with a series of emergency actions. In 1994, a high density sludge treatment plant was installed that removes 99.99 percent of metals from the site's toxic runoff. The settlement pays for natural resource restoration projects, provides for operation and maintenance for 30 years, and guarantees additional funding for site costs incurred after the year 2030. |
