ELR Citation: 44 ELR 20208
No(s). 12-36065 (9th Cir. Sep 16, 2014)

The Ninth Circuit upheld a consent decree under CERCLA requiring a PRP to pay $350,000, plus interest, in cleanup costs incurred at a former lead and silver mine site in Bonner County, Idaho. CERCLA authorizes the United States to settle with a PRP for an amount less than that PRP’s proportionate share of the cost to clean up a polluted site if it has a limited ability to pay. Here, the United States appropriately considered the financial health of the PRP in concluding that the proposed settlement represented the maximum amount of money it could contribute to the cleanup costs. And contrary to an intervenor's objection, the lower court did not abuse its discretion by forgoing a comparative fault analysis that it deemed irrelevant to the specific, permissible factors underlying the terms of the consent decree. The court, therefore, upheld the lower court's approval of the consent decree.