EPA and state departments of environmental protection have limited resources to take on these cases, prove them up, and follow-through over the years it takes to do cleanup. In our case, Illinois EPA actually entered into a consent decree with defendants regarding the site, and defendants argued that the consent decree preempted our common law clams. But IEPA pretty much ignored enforcement for 15+ years. So we were stuck in a situation where enforcement power had been shifted from the courts to the agency, but the agency wasn&#x27;t interested in acting.[1]<p>What ultimately happened was that regime change happened at IEPA and they got serious about enforcing the consent decree. But that still doesn&#x27;t compensate the townspeople. Good luck getting someone to buy your house in a former superfund site, even if the heavy metals on the school grounds have been cleaned up to a reasonable, cost-effective standard.<p>[1] This problem is recurring. Agency enforcement is a <i>lot more efficient</i> than lawsuits. But agencies only have the resources to go after the biggest fish for the most egregious violations. And they&#x27;re far more susceptible to political pressure (&quot;you can&#x27;t sue XYZ, they have 10,000 jobs in our state!&quot;)