United States v. Hercules, LLC

In an order approving a consent decree that resolved federal government claims related to the cleanup of a Superfund site on the Atlantic coast of Georgia, the federal district court for the Southern District of Georgia was not persuaded by arguments that EPA’s selected remedy of capping contaminated soils would not withstand flooding caused by hurricanes, tidal changes, and global warming. (This concern had been raised by amici curiae.) The court found that the record showed that EPA considered such concerns, and the court cited EPA’s conclusion that the remedial measures provided a “long-term effective remedy with a high degree of permanence and resiliency as required by the Climate Change Adaptation Implementation Plan of 2014.” The court said it would not second-guess EPA technical judgments and found that the selection of the remedy was not unreasonable, arbitrary, or capricious.