The federal courts are in agreement that an action by a potentially responsible party (PRP) against another PRP to recover privately incurred response costs is a claim for contribution in which the plaintiff is limited to the relief that is available under §113(f)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).
Conventional wisdom says that the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) is an impediment to the reuse of brownfields. Examination of a decade of experience, however, reveals that properties "captured by the net" of RCRA jurisdiction have gone on to new, productive, and economically viable reuse. Contrary to conventional wisdom, there is also a great potential for many more RCRA properties to do so.
Editors' Summary: Environmental professionals continue to consider the implications of the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision regarding CWA jurisdiction, Rapanos v. United States. In this Article, Matthew A. Axtell uses Justice William O. Douglas'travel description of Alaska's Last Lake as a hypothetical to test the potential impact of the 2001 SWANCC decision as well as Rapanos on the federal government's CWA authority in Alaska. He begins by analyzing the CWA regulatory regime that applied for many years to Alaskan tundra wetlands before SWANCC and Rapanos.
The court holds that a company satisfied the requirements for the issuance of a preliminary injunction against a city seeking to enforce two zoning ordinances that impose disposal fees for the storage of radioactive material. The court first holds that the abstention doctrine does not apply. To the ...
The court holds that a city is not liable as an arranger under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for burying discarded barrels and drums at an airport, and cannot be held responsible for the medical monitoring costs of a firefighter exposed to hazardo...
The court denies a landowner's motion for partial summary judgment on claims under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Pennsylvania Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act (PaHSCA) against a wire rope manufacturer that previously owned a portion of the cont...
The court holds that under the Alaska Native Claims Settlement Act (ANCSA) a native regional corporation need not obtain the consent of a native village corporation to mine on lands that are patented to the village but located outside the village's boundaries. The court first holds that the boundari...
The court holds that a state may only recover from responsible private parties the nonarbitrary portions of response costs it incurred cleaning up lead-contaminated soils under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) and the Minnesota Environmental Response...
The court holds that local school districts, municipalities, and timber companies may intervene as of right in litigation brought by plaintiff-environmentalists to restrict logging activities in the Allegheny National Forest in Pennsylvania. The court first notes that the parties do not dispute the ...
The court holds that the owner of a contaminated landfill may only recover response costs from alleged generators of hazardous waste through a contribution action under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) §113. The court first holds that the owner of the l...