A district court held that a refinery that settled in bankruptcy court its liability for response costs incurred at a Superfund site may seek contribution from a mining company. The mining company argued that the settlement agreement for which the refinery seeks contribution only resolves the refine...

A bankruptcy court denied a company's motion to dismiss a bankruptcy trustee's CERCLA §107 claim against it for response costs incurred by the debtor to EPA, New York, and a manufacturer as a result of the debtor's settlement of their CERCLA claims. The company argued that the trustee cannot recove...

A Texas appellate court held that sovereign immunity bars an individual's lawsuit against the board members of a local reclamation district claiming that their activities caused a lake to be substantially drained during 2008 and for most of the years 2009 through 2011. As a governmental agency and p...

A district court held that the bar to transfer of CERCLA liability applies to contribution claims brought between and among third parties, not just the U.S. government. CERCLA §107(e)(1) provides that "no indemnification, hold harmless, or similar agreement or conveyance shall be effective to trans...

A district court denied a mining company's motion to dismiss a smelting company's contribution claim against it for response costs and natural resources damages incurred at an old smelting operation in the Southeast Missouri Mining District. The mining company argued that the smelting company, which...

A district court denied a group of companies' motion for summary judgment challenging the government's remedy for cleaning up PCB contamination in Wisconsin's Fox River. The companies argued that the administrative record is fatally incomplete due to the destruction of certain computer model data an...

The Seventh Circuit upheld a lower court's preliminary injunction compelling a PRP to complete the remediation work concerning PCB contamination at the Fox River in Wisconsin that was scheduled for this year. The PRP has performed a significant amount of cleanup at the site. But in 2011 it decided t...

The Tenth Circuit dismissed as moot an environmental group's CAA citizen suit against an energy company for building a new coal-fired power plant in Pueblo, Colorado, without a valid construction permit. Although the project initially complied with all applicable federal and state laws when construc...

A district court dismissed environmental groups' lawsuits challenging BLM's decision to authorize the leasing of certain public lands in northeastern Wyoming for coal mining operations. The groups, who claim that BLM failed to prepare an adequate EIS before authorizing the leasing of the tracts at i...