A district court held that the United States is an arranger and operator under CERCLA with regard to the waste disposal sites at four phosphate mines in the Caribou-Targhee National Forest. The United States conditioned its approval of mine plans on requiring the lessees to perform specific reclamat...

The Ninth Circuit held that the holder of a revocable permit to use real property is not an "owner" of that real property for purposes of imposing liability under CERCLA for the cleanup of hazardous substances disposed on that property by others. Under California common law, the holder of a revocabl...

A district court issued a preliminary injunction enjoining plaintiffs from enforcing a multibillion dollar judgment awarded by an Ecuadorian court against an oil company for environmental pollution in the Amazon. The evidence establishes that the plaintiffs and their allies intend quickly to...

A district court held that a paper company is entitled to contribution from a downstream company for costs it incurred cleaning up PCB contamination at four of five operable units along a river. The court previously ruled that the downstream company was not entitled to contribution from the ...

A district court held that personal injury provisions contained in an insurance policy require the insurer to indemnify a mining company for any monetary liability arising from its contamination of land and water on and adjacent to a uranium mining site on the Spokane Indian Reservation in e...

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...