ELR Citation: 41 ELR 20232
No(s). JFM-97-558, -559, 41 (D. Md. Jul 5, 2011)

A district court held that under a 1997 consent decree resolving CWA, RCRA, and state-law violations at a steel mill, the current owner is not liable for remediating any discharges that occurred prior to its purchase of the mill out of the previous owner's bankruptcy, but that it must conduct a site-wide investigation to evaluate the risk to human health and the environment from current and past releases of hazardous wastes at the mill. The bankruptcy sale order eliminates the owner's liability for toxic discharge that occurred prior to the date of the order's issuance. But the owner's obligation to conduct a site-wide investigation is a free-standing liability that it assumed when it purchased the assets of the prior owner.