In a 100+ page opinion, a district court vacated EPA's water transfers rule, which excludes water transfers that convey or connect "waters of the United States without subjecting the transferred water to intervening industrial, municipal, or commercial use" from the CWA's NPDES permitting requiremen...
A district court held that plaintiffs may go forward with their CWA citizen suit against the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation and a California water authority in a case involving the need for a NPDES permit for an irrigation project jointly administered by the two agencies. The plaintiffs pled sufficient ...
The Second Circuit held that CERCLA does not allow a subcontractor hired to perform cleanup activities on a site the right to recover the value of unpaid work directly from the landowner. The landowner paid a general contractor for costs associated with the cleanup of a contaminated parcel of land. ...
A district court held that environmental groups may go forward with their CWA lawsuit against a rail carrier for allowing coal dust from open-top rail cars to be released into U.S. waterways. At issue was whether coal dust from rail cars that falls onto land, rather than directly into the waters, of...
The Sixth Circuit held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers complied with NEPA and the CWA when it issued a §404 permit to a mining company for a secondary mining project that was part of a larger mining operation in Kentucky. The Kentucky Division of Mine Permits, which has exclusive jurisdiction...
The Fifth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a lawsuit filed by 11 Louisiana parishes in which they sought penalties under the Louisiana Wildlife Protection Statute for the pollution-related loss of aquatic life and wildlife following the April 2010 Deepwater Horizon disaster in the ...
A district court held that a water treatment company who purchased ferrous chloride crystals is jointly and severally liable for cleanup costs incurred after the bags in which the crystals were originally packaged leaked during their transport from Taiwan to California. The court previously ruled th...
A district court held that a group of PRPs in connection with a former hazardous waste incinerator in Kentucky may go forward with their CERCLA cost recovery and contribution claims against a group of companies that allegedly generated and/or transported hazardous waste to the site. The companies ar...