CERCLA

Two real estate companies sued a church to recover the costs of responding to contaminated groundwater that migrated from the adjacent church property. A district court dismissed the church’s counterclaims alleging that the migration from the church’s property made plaintiffs’ property part of a single Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) “facility” and thus plaintiffs were responsible as a current owner. Alprof Realty LLC v. Corp. of the Presiding Bishop of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, 2012 WL 4049800 (E.D.N.Y. No. 09-5190, Sept. 13, 2012). The court stated: “The cases cited by the Church do not establish that a CERCLA facility must always be defined to include the entire area of contamination, and they particularly do not stand for the proposition that an unrelated neighboring property onto which contamination spreads becomes part of the CERCLA facility.” The court also noted that the Church did not allege that it incurred costs because contamination from plaintiff’s property threatened to damage Church property.