The court held that New York's contribution statute may not be used as a surrogate for seeking contribution under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). A utility company commenced this action seeking to recover expenses it incurred remediating 24 hazardous w...

The court held that two utility companies are not liable under Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination at the Missouri Electric Works Superfund site in Cape Girardeau, Missouri. The companies sold electrical tran...

A district court granted a company's motion to reconsider its as-applied constitutional challenge to a unilateral administrative order issued by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) against it directing the company to perform cleanup activities at an airport. The court initially dismissed ...

A district court held that the former employee of an electroplating and metal finishing business was liable as an operator under §107(a)(2) of CERCLA for the cost of removal of hazardous waste at the Meadowlands Plating and Finishing site in New Jersey. The United States and the employee stipul...

The Tenth Circuit affirmed in part and reversed in part the U.S. Forest Service's (Forest Service's) approval of a timber sale project in a portion of the Ashley National Forest in Utah. The court rejected an environmental group's claim that the Forest Service failed to assess the project's impact o...

The Court of International Trade denied environmental groups' motion to preliminarily enjoin timber companies from importing bigleaf mahogany from Peru into the United States and dismissed the groups' lawsuit. The groups alleged that by importing the tree without a valid permit, the timber companies...

The Ninth Circuit upheld a lower court decision rejecting National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries' 2004 biological opinion (BO) addressing the effects of the proposed operation of Federal Columbia River Power System dams and facilities on salmon and steelhead in the lower Columbia ...

A district court upheld a lower court decision permanently enjoining defendants from discharging dredge and fill material on wetlands adjacent to tributaries of the navigable Ohio and Green rivers in Kentucky without complying with the Clean Water Act (CWA). The court rejected the defendants' argume...

The court upheld the conviction of a trailer park sewage lagoon operator for knowingly discharging a pollutant from a point source into navigable waters without a permit in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA). The operator claimed that the lower court should have acquitted him because the governm...

A district court held that a landowner is liable under Clean Water Act §301 for filling wetlands without a permit. Applying Justice Kennedy's test in Rapanos v. United States, 126 S. Ct. 2208, 36 ELR 20116 (2006), the court held that the wetlands at issue are jurisdictional. The United States h...