A district court stayed further proceedings in litigation challenging EPA's "waters of the United States" (WOTUS) rule pending any further decision by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit or the U.S. Supreme Court. Numerous challenges throughout the country have been levied against the fi...

In an unpublished opinion, a district court held that a developer may go forward with its CERCLA, tort law, and fraudulent concealment claims against the former owner of contaminated property under which PCB-contaminated USTs were discovered after the developer purchased the property. The developer ...

New York's highest court held that material questions of fact prevent it from ruling on whether a narrow waterway within a remote area of the Adirondack Mountains is navigable-in-fact and therefore open to public use. At issue in the case is the "Mud Pond Waterway," a two-mile-long system of ponds a...

A district court denied a manufacturing company's motion to certify for interlocutory appeal certain questions pertaining to its statute of limitations and claim preclusion defenses in an underlying case over who should bear the cost of cleaning up contamination at a steel processing site. The curre...

A district court granted Missouri's remand request to litigate in state court its lawsuit against the owner and operator of a landfill in connection with an uncontrolled, underground trash fire at the site. The state alleged various state law violations, along with claims for nuisance, cost recovery...

A district court held that an insurer has no duty to defend or indemnify a company in two underlying actions seeking contribution for past and future costs incurred at a PCB-contaminated site. The company had sent transformers to the site for repair, during which PCBs were released. The company was ...

The Supreme Court of Montana upheld a lower court decision dismissing a smelting company's state-law claims against an oil refinery in connection with costs incurred remediating a former lead smelting site in East Helena, Montana. The refinery sold the site to the smelting company in 1972. Under the...

A Montana court vacated and remanded a water discharge permit that the state's environmental agency issued to a coal mine in southeastern Montana. The agency's decisions are arbitrary and not supported by the law, and when viewed in its totality, the record demonstrates clear errors of judgment with...