Bradley Min. Co. v. U.S.E.P.A

1 Citing case

  1. CTS Corp. v. Environmental Protection Agency

    759 F.3d 52 (D.C. Cir. 2014)   Cited 143 times
    Concluding that petitioner's reliance on post-decision expert report critiquing methodology used by EPA to evaluate groundwater contamination at a hazardous waste site was "procedurally foreclosed"

    On the merits, there is no dispute that material levels of TCE, the hazardous contaminant used, stored, and released by CTS at its property for decades, were found at four wells in the Oaks Subdivision. CTS, however, levels three objections to the EPA's identification of the CTS property as the source of any portion of the Oaks Subdivision contamination. That attribution of responsibility is critical because the EPA does not dispute that it was the four observed releases at those Oaks Subdivision wells that pushed the Hazard Ranking System score for the CTS Site over the 28.50 benchmark for listing. This court affords “significant deference” to the EPA's decision to add a site to the List “because of the ‘highly technical issues involved’ and because the [List] serves merely as a ‘rough list of priorities, assembled quickly and inexpensively.’ ” Carus Chemical Co. v. EPA, 395 F.3d 434, 441 (D.C.Cir.2005) (quoting Bradley Mining Co. v. EPA, 972 F.2d 1356, 1359 (D.C.Cir.1992)). Accordingly, to prevail, CTS bears the burden of establishing that the EPA's decision that the CTS Site contributed in “[s]ome portion” to the contamination of the Oaks Subdivision wells, see40 C.F.R. Part 300, App. A, § 3.1.1, was “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.”