United States and State of Nebraska v. Gould Electronics Inc. Consent Decree

In May 2011, in accordance with CERCLA, the United States (on behalf of the EPA) and the State of Nebraska (on behalf of the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality) filed a complaint against Gould Electronics Inc. This complaint characterized Gould as a party partially responsible for payment toward the remediation and response actions necessary in the Omaha Lead Superfund Site.

Gould Electronics Inc. was a battery manufacturer, with a waste facility located in the Superfund Site. While its industrial air pollution was not as quite severe as ASARCO’s or Union Pacific’s, it contributed to the overall hazardous state of the Superfund Site area and the EPA deemed them responsible.

This consent decree documents Gould Electronic Inc.’s agreement to pay $1,104,000 to the EPA and $46,000 to the Nebraska Department of Environmental Quality within 30 days of its filing. These payments were to reimburse the EPA and the State for remediation actions previously taken to address the contamination at the Superfund Site. Unlike with Union Pacific, this consent decree required no additional actions of Gould beyond the timely payment of these specified amounts.

Importantly, in court Gould Electronics Inc., referred to as the “settling defendant,” did not admit and in fact expressly denied any liability based on the allegations of lead pollution or contamination. This is an example of yet another company who believed, or claimed to believe, that their contribution to the Superfund Site was minimal. Because they maintained that they were not liable as CERCLA mandated, there is reason to suspect that the final monetary settlement was a compromise – an agreement based on the two parties’ demands. This would imply that Gould Electronics Inc. did not pay the full amount for which they were responsible.

Like Union Pacific’s consent decree, Gould’s document lacks an assessment of how much money they owed the United States Government. For this reason, it is challenging to say to what extent the EPA accomplished the goal of “making responsible parties pay” in the case of Gould Electronics Inc. This is not to say that this Consent Decree and settlement was not successful in holding Gould Electronics Inc. somewhat accountable for their pollution, however without knowing an exact quantification of the harm done by Gould Electronics, it cannot be said with certainty the extent to which the EPA was effective in accomplishing their goal.

Situated in the larger context of environmental justice, this consent decree reveals the difficulty of holding companies responsible for practices that induce environmental harms, especially in the face of outright denial of responsibility. While the payments from Gould were necessary, it is likely that they were insufficient against the backdrop of the severe lead contamination of the Omaha Lead Site. This suggests a need to re-evaluate the processes by which governments and communities hold companies responsible, so as to more adequately ensure these companies’ acceptance of social and financial responsibility.[1]

[1] Shrivastava, Paul. “Industrial and Environmental Crises: Rethinking Corporate Social Responsibility.” Greening Environmental Policy, 1995, 183–98.