Shell Oil Co. v. United States
The Federal Circuit vacated a trial judge's decision requiring the United States to indemnify certain oil companies for environmental cleanup costs under CERCLA. Because the trial judge's wife owned shares in the parent company of two of the defendant oil companies, he decided to sever the two o...
Scottsdale Indemnity Co. v. Village of Crestwood
The Seventh Circuit held that an insurance company has no duty to defend or indemnify a town in underlying lawsuits alleging that it knowingly supplied contaminated drinking water to its residents. In the mid-1908s, town officials learned that one of its water wells was contaminated with perc. B...
Northwest Environmental Advocates v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
A district court held that EPA violated the CWA when it failed to review Oregon's nonpoint source rules. The nonpoint source provisions create exemptions for many sources of pollution in Oregon's waters, including agriculture, forestry, and grazing. EPA claimed that the regulations at issue were...
San Luis & Delta-Mendota Water Authority v. United States
The Ninth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision granting summary judgment in favor of the U.S. government on claims challenging the DOI's accounting of approximately 9,000 acre feet of water released between June 17 and 24, 2004, from two reservoirs within California's Central Valley Project (...
Severstal Sparrows Point, LLC v. United States Environmental Protection Agency
A district court held that under a 1997 consent decree resolving CWA, RCRA, and state-law violations at a steel mill, the current owner is not liable for remediating any discharges that occurred prior to its purchase of the mill out of the previous owner's bankruptcy, but that it must conduct a site...
Ohio River Valley Environmental Coalition, Inc. v. Salazar
A district court upheld the OSM's approval of amendments to West Virginia's federally approved SMCRA program that pertain to cumulative hydrologic impact assessments. The amendments delete the program's definition of “cumulative impact” and add a definition for “material damage to the ...
Cooperstown Holstein Corp. v. Town of Middlefield
A New York court upheld a town's enactment of a zoning law that bans oil and gas drilling, including hydraulic fracturing, within the geographical borders of the township. The holder of two gas leases argued that §23-0303 of New York's Environmental Conservation Law preempts the zoning law. The...