A district court held that litter and manure washed from a farmyard into navigable waters due to a precipitation event is an agricultural stormwater discharge and not a point source discharge, rendering it exempt from the CWA's NPDES permit requirement. The case involves a poultry farmer who operate...

The Second Circuit vacated and remanded a lower court decision dismissing as time barred New York's CERCLA claims against several defendants for costs a town incurred investigating and addressing groundwater contamination stemming from the New Cassel Industrial Area. The lower court held that the st...

A district court issued an injunction ordering the U.S. Forest Service to prohibit industrial equipment—known as "mega-loads"—headed for the Alberta Sands from being transported along a highway that runs through the Nez Perce Reservation and the Nez Perce-Clearwater National Forest until certain...

The Third Circuit affirmed a lower court decision vacating a 2009 settlement agreement between the U.S. Forest Service and environmental groups that banned oil and gas drilling in the Allegheny National Forest pending the completion of a multi-year, forestwide EIS under NEPA. The lower court had pre...

A district court held that BLM complied with NEPA and FLPMA when it authorized a uranium mining project in south central Wyoming. BLM, in conjunction with other state and federal agencies, undertook extensive and exhaustive reviews of the potential environmental impacts of the project, and the agenc...

The Eighth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision that insurers had no duty to defend or indemnify an oil refinery in an underlying CERCLA lawsuit filed against it by EPA. EPA sent the refinery a letter in 2001 notifying it that it was a PRP. Because EPA's allegations in the letter arguably fell wi...