The Ninth Circuit held that the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS) violated the Marine Mammal Protection Act (MMPA), but not NEPA, when it authorized Idaho, Oregon, and Washington to kill up to 85 California sea lions annually at the Bonneville Dam in order to protect salmon in the Columbia Ri...

A Wisconsin appellate court held that an insurer has no duty to indemnify a manufacturing company for costs it incurred cleaning up private landowners' property that was part of a larger environmental remediation effort required by the government. The parties previously stipulated that the insurer w...

A district court denied an energy company's motion to dismiss CERCLA claims filed against it for reimbursement costs incurred by the former owner of a contaminated site, but granted its motion to dismiss the owner's contribution claims under CERCLA §113. The former site owner entered into an admini...

A district court granted in part and denied in part several motions and cross-motions for summary judgment in a cost recovery and contribution action stemming from contamination at a dry cleaning business. The trustee of the property owner's estate filed suit against the former owners and lesse...

A district court held that the U.S. Forest Service's Public Wheeled Motorized Travel Management Decision for the Eldorado National Forest violated the ESA and the National Forest Management Act. The decision designates specific roads and trails within the forest as open to public motor vehicle ...

A district court held that a consent decree settling an electric company's CERCLA liability with EPA and granting it contribution protection against additional CERCLA liability at an industrial site does not provide the company with contribution protection from a defense company's action seeking dam...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the dismissal of individuals' citizen suit claim against a Canadian mining company seeking civil penalties under CERCLA for the mining company's noncompliance with a unilateral administrative order. Because a citizen suit for penalties while remediation is ongoing is a ...

A district court held that the FWS' biological opinion (BiOp) for the U.S. Army's proposed ongoing and future operations at Fort Huachuca—a major military installation in southeastern Arizona—violates the ESA and is arbitrary and capricious. The BiOp concluded that the operations will not jeopar...

A district court dismissed an insurance company's CERCLA §§107 and 112 claim for response costs incurred by one of its policy holders seeking to redevelop the site of a former aerospace manufacturing facility. Because insurance payments made pursuant to a contractual obligation are not "respo...

A district court approved two consent decrees settling Colorado's claims for natural resource damages against two waste companies and the city and county of Denver in connection with the Lowry Landfill Superfund site. The settlement, which requires the performing parties to each pay $500,000...