The Ninth Circuit reversed a district court decision that allocated 100% liability under CERCLA to a government contractor seeking contribution from the U.S. government. For 60 years the contractor operated a manufacturing facility where it manufactured aircrafts primarily for the U.S. government. F...

A district court ruled that passive migration of benzene from a former steel mill to an adjoining shipyard does not make the owners liable for a "disposal" under CERCLA. The plaintiff's shipyard contained a "graving dock," which is used for the "repair or scrapping of ships under dry conditions." Th...

The Tenth Circuit held that a Wyoming law that imposed civil and criminal liability on those who cross private property to access adjacent land to collect resource data violates the First Amendment. In 2015, Wyoming enacted a pair of statutes that prohibited individuals from entering “open land fo...

A district court held that an industrial chemical company is not liable for fines for refusing to comply with an administrative order under CERCLA. In an previous decision, the company was found jointly and severally liable for the release of dioxin at the Centredale Manor Restoration Project Superf...

A district court held that a natural gas company can seek contribution from the federal government for uranium contamination cleanup under CERCLA. The company filed suit against the federal government for contribution for costs incurred cleaning up 19 former uranium mines on a Navajo reservation as ...

The Ninth Circuit held that the FAA did not act arbitrarily when it forewent a full EIS on a third runway at the Hillsboro Airport in Hillsboro, Oregon. In 2005, the airport, the busiest in the state of Oregon, developed a plan to deal with traffic that included the addition of a third runway. Since...

The Tenth Circuit held that a mining company has the right to recover cleanup costs at a Superfund site because the U.S. government was an owner under the statute. Over the last century, the mining company and its corporate predecessors mined molybdenum at a site near Questa, New Mexico. The mining ...

A district court held that an agriculture company cannot pursue Superfund cost recovery against Spokane, Washington, over polychlorinated biphenyl (PCB) contamination in the Spokane River. The company produced PCBs from 1935 to 1970 that the city of Spokane claimed contributed to the impairment of t...