The Ninth Circuit held that a local flood district is liable under the CWA for discharging polluted stormwater into the Los Angeles and San Gabriel Rivers. Environmental groups filed suit against the flood district as well as against a county for unlawful stormwater discharges into the Los A...

The Wyoming Supreme Court upheld a state-issued air quality permit authorizing a power plant's construction of a proposed coal-to-liquid facility and an associated underground coal mine. The court rejected an environmental group's claims that the permit fails to consider significant sulfur d...

A district court set aside a U.S. Forest Service rule exempting the Tongass National Forest—the nation's largest—from the Roadless Area Conservation Rule. The court ruled that the exemption was arbitrary and capricious because the Forest Service failed to provide a rational basis for temporarily...

A Michigan appellate court reversed the dismissal of property owners' nuisance claims against a manufacturing company for groundwater contamination. The lower court relied on Adkins v Thomas Solvent Co., 440 Mich. 293, 487 N.W. 2d 715 (1992), in dismissing the case. Adkins, however, was premised...

The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision rejecting claims that a transportation commission's disproportionate emphasis on rail expansion projects over bus expansion projects in its regional transit plan illegally discriminates against minorities. Although the plaintiffs’ statistic...

The Fourth Circuit held that a biological opinion issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service as part of EPA's process of reregistering the insecticides chlorpyrifos, diazinon, and malathion is subject to judicial review under the APA. The Service's biological opinion concluded that the...

A New York appellate court held that a property owner who had no knowledge of a UST on his property when he purchased it and did nothing to contribute to the contamination is nevertheless strictly liable as a discharger and not entitled to reimbursement from the New York Environmental Protec...

A district court held that residents' state law tort claims against the former owners of an industrial site should not be dismissed under the "primary jurisdiction" doctrine. The residents filed suit against the former owners for allegedly contaminating their property and persons with toxic,...

A district court held that an aerospace and technology company is not entitled to insurance coverage by "operation of law" for certain environmental liabilities under CERCLA on policies issued by an insurance company to the prior owner of the contaminated site at issue. The company's operati...

A district court dismissed a CERCLA §107 claim brought by a group of real estate developers who purchased contaminated property from a manufacturing company in 1986. Prior to purchasing the property, the group hired an environmental consultant who performed a cursory environmental audit. Th...