ELR Citation: ELR 21332
No(s). 82-3155-S (D. Mass. Jul 29, 1991)

The court holds that plaintiffs in a private cost recovery action under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) have failed to show causation. Plaintiffs seek to recover the costs of building and operating a water treatment plaint to remove pollutants from a well field that is the town's primary source of water. The court holds that plaintiffs have failed to show that the pollution of their well field was caused by the release of contaminants from defendant's facility. The court finds that there is a remote possibility that volatile organic compounds from defendant's facility may migrate to the plaintiffs' well field if geological conditions change. However, the threat of future contamination did not drive the plaintiffs to build the treatment plant, because the plaintiffs had decided to built the plant before they discovered the pollutants on defendant's property.

[Previous decisions in this litigation are published at 14 ELR 20838, 16 ELR 20787, 17 ELR 20223, 19 ELR 20487, and 20 ELR 20334 and 20340.]

Counsel for Plaintiffs
Christopher P. Davis, Allan van Gestel
Goodwin, Procter & Hoar
Exchange Pl., Boston MA 02109
(617) 570-1000

Counsel for Defendant
Thomas Holt
Brown, Rudnick, Freed & Gesmer
1 Financial Ctr., Boston MA 02111
(617) 330-9000