Allocating Cleanup Costs at Hazardous Waste Sites

Abstract

Cleanup Costs at WASTE Sites Most people agree that Superfund sites and other complex, multiparty, hazardous waste sites that pose risks to human health and the environment should be remediated. However, the process of apportioning cleanup costs is often disputed among the potentially responsible parties (PRPs). As the available state and federal funding for site cleanup has diminished, pressure has increased for PRP-funded cleanups. Allocating uncertain cleanup costs in a timely, equitable, and mutually acceptable manner among numerous PRPs with different connections to the site, especially given varying legal interpretations and limited data, creates a difficult dilemma. Costly and protracted litigation to determine cost shares is an increasingly unattractive option and provides a strong incentive for devising a fair, understandable, and efficient privately administered approach to allocating costs among PRPs. This article outlines such an approach.Apportioning costs among potentially responsible parties is complicated but can be done with allocation formulas.

Extricating Membership as a PRP at Hazardous Waste Disposal Sites

“…The above factors have been previously discussed in technical literature (Ram et al., ). Regardless of the approach, methodologies to allocate costs among PRPs should be acceptable to the participating parties to ensure resolution among all parties can be achieved.…”

“…Of the remaining eight sites, there was insufficient information to evaluate four for a linkage to the client or to evaluate specific extrication mechanisms, leaving only four sites where project documents could not extricate the client as a PRP. Costs for these four sites were then apportioned to the client relative to other PRPs (see Ram et al., , for discussion of cost apportionment).…”

Estimating Remediation Costs at Contaminated Sites With Varying Amounts of Available Information

“…The assessment and cleanup costs presented in the study are a useful literature resource upon which to base response action costs when neither site-specific or analog site information are available, after adjusting for inflation (see Exhibits 2 and 3). These exhibits were adapted from Probst and Konisky (2001) and adjusted to current costs (i.e., from 1999 to 2012 dollars) using inflation factors derived from the Gross Domestic Product Implicit Price Deflator (equal to 1.33) published by the US Department of Commerce, Bureau of Economic Analysis Various approaches exist to apportioning costs to other potentially responsible parties (as discussed previously by Ram et al, 2005). In addition, NRD and toxic tort claims can substantially increase the ultimate cost borne by a responsible party.…”

Allocating cleanup costs among potentially responsible parties

“…40 CFR §300.700(c) [Section 107(a) Cost Recovery Actions] (NCP, 40 CFR Part 300) states that, “Responsible parties shall be liable for all response costs incurred by the United States government or a state or an Indian tribe not inconsistent with the NCP.” The CERCLA statute and case law suggest that in an allocation proceeding among PRPs, recoverable past costs consist of all costs of prior response actions that were necessary and consistent with the National Contingency Plan (Ram, Wiest, & Davis, ).…”