A district court dismissed a family's claims that a developer exposed them to contaminated land and failed to disclose material facts about their home and property in violation of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act and Maryland law. The family alleged that the ...

The court upheld a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) rule listing the Alabama sturgeon as endangered. The court rejected claims that the FWS failed to rely on the best scientific data available in its listing decision. Nor did the FWS violate the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by listing the specie...

The court upheld the dismissal of property owners' Clean Water Act (CWA) citizen suit against several companies for pollution allegedly stemming from the wrongful and illegal construction, reconstruction, operation, and maintenance of numerous oil and gas operations in southeastern Oklahoma. Individ...

The court upheld the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service's (FWS') decision not to classify the western gray squirrel in Washington State as an endangered distinct population segment (DPS) under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Because the ESA does not expressly define "distinct population segment," the ...

The court held that it was appropriate for the National Park Service (NPS) to conduct a National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) analysis prior to granting property owners' request for an access permit under the Alaska National Interest Lands Conservation Act (ANILCA). After the owners' home burned ...

A district court, in light of Rapanos v. United States, 126 S. Ct. 2208, 36 ELR 20116 (2006), dismissed a Clean Water Act citizen suit against a gun range for discharging lead shot into wetlands and a vernal pond bordering the navigable Farmington River in Connecticut. Applying Justice Antonin Scali...

The court held that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) erred in approving an amendment to Idaho's state implementation plan (SIP) that allowed farmers to burn the residue left in their fields after harvesting their crops. EPA grounded its approval on the premise that the preexisting Idah...

The court invalidated the "Tulloch II" rule, which governs when the use of mechanized earth-moving equipment that results in the discharge of dredged or fill material requires a Clean Water Act §404 permit. The original Tulloch rule defined the discharge of dredged material as "any addition of ...

The court affirmed in part and reversed in part a lower court decision that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (the Corps) violated the National Environmental Policy Act in issuing a developer a Clean Water Act (CWA) §404 permit to dredge and fill wetlands for a residential project. The Corps' fi...

The court held that a water district that voluntarily incurred costs cleaning up hazardous materials from its property in Chicago, Illinois, may seek recovery costs from a lessee under §107(a) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA). Because the wat...