Superfund Liability

The Superfund law (officially the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, "CERCLA") imposes liability on parties responsible for, in whole or in part, the presence of hazardous substances at a site.

Retroactive	Parties may be held liable for acts that happened before Superfund's enactment in 1980.
Joint and Several	Any one potentially responsible party (PRP) may be held liable for the entire cleanup of the site (when the harm caused by multiple parties cannot be separated).
Strict	A PRP cannot simply say that it was not negligent or that it was operating according to industry standards. If a PRP sent some amount of the hazardous waste found at the site, that party is liable.

Hazardous substances are present at a facility,
There is a release (or a possibility of a release) of these hazardous substances,
Response costs have been or will be incurred, and
The defendant is a liable party.

Some potentially responsible parties (PRPs) have unique circumstances that impact their liability due to either one or all of the following:

the small amount of waste that they contributed,
the limited hazard posed by the waste they contributed,
their status as municipalities, private homeowners, handlers of municipal solid waste, or owners of property above contaminated aquifers, and/or
their inability to pay for the cleanup.

Defenses to Superfund liability are limited to cases in which the release was caused by:

An act of God,
Acts of war, or
Acts/omissions of a third party with whom a PRP has no contractual relationship.

The Superfund law does provide several exemptions from and protections to Superfund liability.

More information is available from EPA policy and guidance documents contained within the Superfund enforcement policy and guidance database.