Starlink Logistics, Inc. v. ACC, LLC

101 F.4th 431

STARLINK LOGISTICS, INC., Plaintiff-Appellant, v. ACC, LLC fka Associated Commodities Corporation, Defendant-Appellee.

No. 22-6118

United States Court of Appeals, Sixth Circuit

Argued: January 31, 2024

Decided and Filed: May 7, 2024

Appeal from the United States District Court for the Middle District of Tennessee at Columbia. No. 1:12-cv-00011—Eli J. Richardson, District Judge.

ARGUED: Matthew C. Blickensderfer, FROST BROWN TODD LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio, for Appellant. Sharon O. Jacobs, DICKINSON WRIGHT PLLC, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellee. ON BRIEF: Matthew C. Blickensderfer, Christopher S. Habel, FROST BROWN TODD LLP, Cincinnati, Ohio, Lucas T. Elliot, FROST BROWN TODD LLP, Nashville, Tennessee, for Appellant. Sharon O. Jacobs, Willam J. Haynes III, R. William Stout, SPENCER FANE LLP, Nashville, Tennessee, Kori Bledsoe Jones, MOUNGER & MOLDER, PLLC, Columbia, Tennessee, for Appellee.

Before: BATCHELDER, CLAY, and DAVIS, Circuit Judges.

CLAY, J., delivered the opinion of the court in which DAVIS, J., joined in full, and BATCHELDER, J., joined in part. BATCHELDER, J. (pp. 452-54), delivered a separate opinion concurring in part and dissenting in part.

OPINION

CLAY, Circuit Judge.

Plaintiff StarLink Logistics, Inc. ("StarLink") appeals the district court's dismissal of some of its claims for lack of jurisdiction and the district court's grant of summary judgment to Defendant ACC, LLC ("ACC") as to its remaining claims. In January 2012, StarLink sued ACC for civil penalties, injunctive relief, and declaratory relief under the citizen suit provisions of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1365, and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act, 42 U.S.C. § 6972, alleging that ACC's improperly closed landfill was polluting StarLink's land. After StarLink initiated its suit, ACC and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation ("Department") finalized a consent order requiring ACC to abate the landfill's pollution. The overarching issue on appeal is what effect this consent order and ACC's subsequent compliance efforts have on StarLink's citizen suit.

In light of the consent order, the district court disposed of StarLink's claims. With respect to ACC's alleged violations of the Clean Water Act and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act occurring prior to the consent order, the district court dismissed StarLink's claims for injunctive and declaratory relief as moot and granted summary judgment to ACC as to StarLink's claims for civil penalties. In the alternative to its mootness and civil penalties rulings, the district court concluded that it would have granted summary judgment to ACC as to all violations occurring prior to the consent order on the basis of claim preclusion. With respect to violations occurring after the consent order, the district court dismissed StarLink's claims for failure to meet the Clean Water Act's and the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act's jurisdictional notice requirements.

For the reasons set forth below, we AFFIRM IN PART and REVERSE IN PART the district court's judgment and REMAND for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.

I. BACKGROUND

A. Factual Background

Plaintiff StarLink owns over one-thousand acres of land adjacent to and downstream from Defendant ACC's land, where ACC used to operate a landfill for byproducts of aluminum recycling. Although ACC's landfill stopped accepting new waste in 1993, and complied with the landfill's closure requirements by 1995, ACC has been required to manage the environmental effects of the landfill following its closure.

StarLink claims that ACC has failed to properly manage the closed landfill. It argues that pollutants from ACC's landfill have been spreading to StarLink's land through contaminated surface water, groundwater, and sediment runoff. The result, according to StarLink, has been a significant increase in pollution. For example, StarLink claims that before ACC's landfill opened, chloride concentrations in a lake on StarLink's land were well below Tennessee's legal limit. Yet, by 2012, chloride concentrations were purportedly over 127 times the maximum and, as of 2021, remain above the legal limit. StarLink describes a similar trend for ammonia concentrations, as well as other pollutants. Based on this, StarLink sued ACC in January 2012, alleging that pollution from ACC's landfill violated federal and state laws.

The merits of StarLink's suit are not directly at issue on appeal. Rather, the dominant issue is whether StarLink's suit can proceed given a 2012 consent order between ACC and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation to address the polluting effects of the landfill. The 2012 consent order sought to remedy pollution from ACC's landfill by requiring ACC to divert uncontaminated water away from the landfill, relocate all of the landfill's waste, and develop a plan to reduce contamination and to monitor water quality. The consent order also imposed $400,000 in contingent penalties if ACC failed to satisfy certain milestone deadlines for waste relocation.

ACC complied with the steps set forth by the 2012 consent order, including relocating all of its landfill waste and building systems to divert uncontaminated water. Despite ACC's compliance, ACC and the Department acknowledged in 2016 that water samples entering StarLink's land "continue[d] to contain high levels of chlorides, ammonia, and total dissolved solids." 2016 Suppl. Consent Order, R. 197-4, Page ID #2629. Thus, the Department took additional steps to address ACC's pollution, although the success of these steps in mitigating pollution has been unclear. In 2016, ACC and the Department agreed to a supplemental consent order that required ACC to develop interim and permanent plans to reduce pollution, as well as submit monitoring data to the Department. The Department later sued ACC for failure to comply with the 2016 order, although it eventually voluntarily dismissed the suit. In 2021, water running from ACC's land to StarLink's land still contained concentrations of pollutants that were significantly higher than those permitted by Tennessee's water quality regulations.

B. Procedural History

1. StarLink's Initial Suit and the Stay of Federal Proceedings

In July 2011, in anticipation of filing a citizen suit against ACC under several federal environmental statutes, StarLink sent a letter of notice to ACC, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA"), and the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation. Approximately six months later, StarLink brought this suit against ACC in federal court, alleging that ACC's management of its landfill was resulting in the pollution of StarLink's land. StarLink sued ACC under Tennessee common law and three federal environmental statutes: the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. § 1251 et seq., the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act ("RCRA"), 42 U.S.C. § 6901 et seq., and the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act ("CERCLA"), 42 U.S.C. § 9601 et seq.

This appeal pertains only to StarLink's Clean Water Act and RCRA claims because the district court consolidated StarLink's other claims with a separate action. As to the Clean Water Act and RCRA, StarLink specifically alleged that ACC was (1) discharging pollutants into navigable waters without a permit, in violation of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1311(a), 1342 (Count 1); (2) discharging fill material into navigable waters without a permit, in violation of the Clean Water Act, 33 U.S.C. §§ 1311(a), 1344 (Count 2); (3) engaging in open dumping of solid waste, in violation of RCRA, 42 U.S.C. §§ 6944(b), 6945 (Count 3); (4) violating the post-landfill closure requirements of Tennessee's solid waste management plan, see Tenn. Comp. R. & Regs. 1200-01-07-04 (2013), which was formed pursuant to RCRA, see 42 U.S.C. §§ 6944-6947 (Count 4); and (5) managing solid waste in a manner that "present[ed] an imminent and substantial endangerment to health or the environment," in violation of RCRA, 42 U.S.C. § 6972(a)(1)(B) (Count 5). For these five counts, StarLink sought injunctive and declaratory relief, as well as civil penalties "of up to $32,500 per day per violation." Am. Compl., R. 61, Page ID #1150-54, 1158. While StarLink's complaint did not list each individual violation by ACC, the complaint defined what constituted a violation for the purposes of each count.

In light of the state administrative and judicial proceedings discussed below, StarLink's Clean Water Act and RCRA claims were stayed from 2013 to 2021 based on the doctrine of Burford abstention. See Saginaw Hous. Comm'n v. Bannum, Inc., 576 F.3d 620, 625-26 (6th Cir. 2009) (discussing the abstention doctrine set forth by Burford v. Sun Oil Co., 319 U.S. 315, 63 S.Ct. 1098, 87 L.Ed. 1424 (1943)).

2. The 2012 Consent Order and State Proceedings

In June 2011, before StarLink brought suit, the Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation entered into a consent order with ACC to address the polluting effects of ACC's landfill. In August 2012, after StarLink opposed the 2011 agreement and initiated its suit, ACC and the Department entered into an amended and restated consent order ("the 2012 consent order") that revised the 2011 agreement. As discussed above, the 2012 consent order attempted to address the pollution flowing from ACC's landfill by requiring ACC to divert uncontaminated water from its landfill, relocate the landfill's waste, and develop a plan to reduce contamination.

Although the 2012 consent order is an administrative agreement, it was judicially reviewed. The 2012 consent order was first adopted as a final order of the Tennessee Solid Waste Disposal Control Board, after which the Board's decision was subject to final judicial review by the Tennessee Court of Appeals. StarLink Logistics, Inc. v. ACC, LLC, No. M2014-00362, 2018 WL 637941, at *1 (Tenn. Ct. App. Jan. 31, 2018). StarLink participated in these proceedings by successfully...