In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether ("MTBE") Products Liability Litigation

67 F. Supp. 3d 619, 2014 WL 7232280
District Court, S.D. New York·Decided December 18, 2014·No. Master File No. 1:00-1898; MDL No. 1358 (SAS); No. M21-88·Published·Cited by 1 cases

Opinion

OPINION AND ORDER

SHIRA A. SCHEINDLIN, District Judge:

I. INTRODUCTION

This is a consolidated multi-district litigation (“MDL”) relating to contamination — actual or threatened — of groundwater from various defendants’ use of the gasoline additive methyl tertiary butyl ether (“MTBE”) and/or tertiary butyl alcohol, a product formed by the breakdown of [622]*622MTBE in water. In this case, plaintiff Orange County Water District (the “District”), which is charged with maintaining groundwater quality, alleges that defendants’ use and handling of MTBE has contaminated, or threatened to contaminate groundwater within its jurisdiction. Familiarity with the underlying facts is presumed for the purposes of this Order.1

Currently before the Court are two motions: (1) a motion for summary judgment brought by all defendants in this action on various grounds (the “Omnibus Motion”),2 and (2) a motion for partial summary judgment brought by certain defendants on claims brought by the District at four designated focus trial sites, alleging that the District suffered no compensable injury or cognizable damages at those trial sites (the “Trial Sites Motion”).3 For the reasons stated below, defendants’ Omnibus Motion is GRANTED in part and DENIED in part. Defendants’ Trial Sites Motion is DENIED.

II. BACKGROUND4

The history of this now ten year old lawsuit is contained within the hundreds of pages worth of prior opinions I have already issued in this case. Once again, I provide a very brief overview. The crux of the District’s lawsuit is that releases of MTBE, contained in defendants’ gasoline, have reached, or will reach, water production wells, contaminating Orange County’s water supply. For the past decade, defendants have chipped away at the District’s case through various stipulations and favorable summary judgment rulings.5 The District’s own attempts to prevail on its claims before trial have been less successful.6 What remains are the District’s timely claims for nuisance, negligence, strict liability, violations of the Orange County Water District Act (“OCWD Act”), and declaratory relief against various defen[623]*623dants at thirty-one focus stations, each of which are associated with certain focus plumes.7 In this section, I describe the specific grounds of defendants’ motions and provide an overview of the facts relevant to resolving those motions.

A. The Pending Motions

In the Omnibus Motion, various groups of defendants have moved for summary judgment on eight grounds:’8 (1) lack of affirmative conduct by defendants which is necessary in order to prevail on a claim for nuisance, (2) lack of evidence of reasonable abatability by plaintiff which is necessary in order to prevail on a claim for continuing nuisance, (3) lack of affirmative conduct by defendants which is necessary in order to prevail on a claim under the OCWD Act, (4) lack of evidence of any recoverable costs incurred by plaintiff which is necessary in order to prevail under the OCWD Act, (5) lack of evidence tracing defendants’ gasoline to the stations at issue, (6) lack of evidence tracing particular defendants’ gasoline from the stations at issue to the production wells, (7) claims at certain stations are time-barred, and (8) failure to disclose information in diseov-ery.9 In the Trial Sites Motion, defendants move for partial summary judgment at four focus stations where defendants claim that the District cannot establish any compensable injury.10

In opposition to both the Omnibus Motion and the Trial Sites Motion, the District relies heavily on declarations by its fate-and-transport expert, Dr. Stephen Wheatcraft.11 On September 22, 2014, I denied defendants’ motion to strike Dr. Wheatcraft’s first declaration, rejecting their argument that the declaration constituted a “sham affidavit” because of alleged contradictions between it and his prior deposition testimony.12 Following an October 6, 2014 teleconference, during which the parties debated the merits of Dr. Wheatcraft’s fate-and-transport modeling,13 the District submitted, at the Court’s request, a supplemental declaration of Dr. Wheatcraft explaining in further detail how his model traced gasoline from the individual stations to production wells.14 With the Court’s permission, defendants filed a response in opposition to this supplemental declaration, including a declaration by their own expert,15 and the District [624]*624filed a final supplemental declaration of Dr. Wheateraft replying to defendants’ opposition.16

B. Dr. Wheatcraft’s Fate-and-Transport Model

At the heart of both summary judgment motions is the disputed testimony of Dr. Wheateraft, who" purports to trace MTBE releases from individual stations to production wells by modeling the path of MTBE plumes. To explain how the model works, it is helpful first to state what Dr. Wheat-craft, does not do: trace specific MTBE releases from their precise, station-specific release point to the associated production well.17 While Dr. Wheateraft did conduct station-specific models to trace MTBE in other regions of California, he claims that in Orange County, a station-specific model “was not possible” for most of the stations “due to clustering.”18 In essence, Dr. Wheateraft argues that where there are many individual stations in close proximity, as there allegedly are in Orange County, it is “nearly impossible” to attribute MTBE detections to a single station.19 Accordingly, a corresponding station-specific model would be inaccurate because the “mass of MTBE would be knowingly understated.” 20

To compensate for this perceived problem, Dr. Wheateraft groups individual stations into “focus plumes.” The plumes are essentially MTBE masses formed by releases from nearby individual stations; Dr. Wheatcraft’s model charts the migration of the plumes to production wells.21 He states that a “separate MTBE source term for each of the focus plume stations was added to the model at the location of the station.”22 Therefore, though Dr. Wheat-craft is tracing the path of “plumes,” not individual station-specific releases, the data driving the model is information regarding releases “from each individual focus plume station.”23 Ultimately, Dr. Wheateraft insists that his model “shows, and it is [his] opinion, that MTBE from each station will enter a plume, comingle [sic] with MTBE from other stations, and then impact one or more wells.”24

Defendants and their expert disagree with Dr. Wheatcraft’s conclusion, as well as the alleged flaws of a station-specific model.25 Instead, defendants argue that “[c]ommingling of plumes in an aquifer does not mean that all the contamination from different sources will behave the same way in groundwater or will necessarily be transported to the same receptor (e.g.,

Free access — add to your briefcase to read the full text and ask questions with AI

In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether ("MTBE") Products Liability Litigation, 67 F. Supp. 3d 619, 2014 WL 7232280 (S.D.N.Y. 2014).

67 F. Supp. 3d 619 (In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether ("MTBE") Products Liability Litigation) — published by Counsel Stack Legal Research, free access to 12M+ legal documents.

Related