American Farm Bureau Federation v. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
A district court held that livestock farm groups lack standing to bar EPA from releasing their members' personal information—including the physical address and other operational details about the farms—in response to environmental groups' FOIA requests for information about concentrated animal f...
LWD PRP Group v. Alcan Corp.
The Sixth Circuit held that the three-year statute of limitations for contribution actions brought after an administrative settlement to perform a removal action begins running when the settlement becomes effective, not when the removal action is completed. In this case, the plaintiff—a group of P...
Vine Street v. Borg Warner Corp.
The Fifth Circuit held that a corporation should not be held liable as an arranger under CERCLA for costs associated with cleaning up a plume of perchloroethylene (PERC) that discharged from a dry cleaning business that operated in the 1960s and 1970s. A district court in 2006 had held the corporati...
Suction Dredge Mining Cases
A California court held that federal mining law preempts a state law that effectively bans the use of any vacuum or suction dredge mining in streams and rivers on federal lands. Under Cal. Fish & Game Code §5653, the use of any vacuum or suction dredge equipment by any person in any river strea...
Anderson v. Teck Metals, Ltd.
A district court granted in part and denied in part a motion to dismiss a class action lawsuit against a Canadian mining company for allegedly causing individuals residing near the Upper Columbia River to suffer various health diseases due to toxic and hazardous air emissions from the company's smel...