## Facts

- Quaker State Corporation (Quaker) leased mineral rights on federal land and conducted drilling operations on the site until its mineral-rights lease expired in 1975.
- Quaker ceased and abandoned its operations on the site by 1978.
- The surface estate was owned by the United States Forest Service, and by 1985 there was no current private operator at the site.
- On July 2, 1985, the U.S. Coast Guard and other federal officials observed an oil sheen on Pine Run in McKean County, Pennsylvania, and discovered an abandoned and refilled wastewater containment pit with evidence of petroleum residues.
- The federal government undertook cleanup operations that included excavation and removal of contaminated material (reported as 115 truckloads), incurring approximately $430,000 in removal costs.
- The Coast Guard demanded that Quaker reimburse the government for removal costs, plus interest and penalties.
- Quaker filed a declaratory-judgment action seeking a ruling that it was not an “owner or operator” under the Clean Water Act’s oil-spill liability provision, 33 U.S.C. § 1321(f).
- The Coast Guard asserted a counterclaim seeking strict liability for removal costs under § 1321(f), argued that “owner or operator” should be determined as of the time of the initial discharge, and sought to proceed alternatively under § 1321(g) against Quaker as a culpable third party.

## Issues

1. Under 33 U.S.C. § 1321(f), is “owner or operator” determined as of the time the discharge is discovered and responded to, or as of the time of the initial discharge?
2. If Quaker is not an “owner or operator” under § 1321(f) at the time of discovery, may the government still pursue Quaker under 33 U.S.C. § 1321(g) as a culpable third party whose acts or omissions caused or contributed to the discharge?

## Decision

- The court held that for § 1321(f) strict-liability removal-cost recovery, “owner or operator” status is assessed at the time of discovery/response, not at the time of the initial discharge.
- Applying that reading, the court concluded Quaker was not an “owner or operator” in 1985 because it had relinquished its leasehold interest and had ended operations years earlier, and the Forest Service owned the land at the time of discovery.
- The court granted Quaker’s motion for summary judgment as to § 1321(f) owner/operator liability and rejected the government’s attempt to impose § 1321(f) liability based on Quaker’s historic operations.
- The court allowed the government to proceed on an alternative theory under § 1321(g), under which the government may seek recovery from a third party whose acts or omissions caused or contributed to the discharge; Quaker’s lack of § 1321(f) owner/operator status did not, by itself, bar § 1321(g) claims.

## Legal Principles

- Under 33 U.S.C. § 1321(f), strict liability for federal removal costs attaches to the party that is the “owner or operator” of the vessel or facility at the time the discharge is discovered and the response is undertaken, rather than a former operator based solely on past site activity.
- A party that has ended operations and no longer has ownership or operational control at the time of discovery is not an “owner or operator” for § 1321(f) strict-liability purposes, even if contamination may trace to earlier operations.
- Section 1321(g) provides a separate path for recovery against a “third party” whose acts or omissions caused or contributed to the discharge or the resulting removal costs, and it may apply even when the targeted party is not the § 1321(f) owner/operator.
- Summary judgment is appropriate where the material facts about present ownership and operational control at the relevant time are not genuinely disputed and the statutory text, read in context, fixes the temporal focus for “owner or operator.”

## Conclusion

Quaker State Corp. v. U.S. Coast Guard held that § 1321(f) “owner or operator” status turns on who owned or operated the facility when the oil discharge was discovered and addressed, so Quaker—having left the site years earlier—was not strictly liable as an owner/operator; however, the government could still pursue Quaker under § 1321(g) on a culpable-third-party theory tied to causation.


Quaker State Corp. v. U.S. Coast Guard, 681 F. Supp. 280 (1988)