The Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court ruling that a coal company isn't liable for claims by property owners over water disposed of in a mine beneath their property because Virginia's statute of limitations prohibited the suit. The coal company undertook “dewatering” its active mine and disposi...

A district court held that a food company is not shielded from CERCLA liability by a settlement reached under RCRA related to the same site. EPA brought suit against the food company, a successor to the company that operated the site until 1982, for response costs the Agency occurred or would incur ...

A district court permitted a contribution suit under CERCLA against a paper company to proceed in a case involving a site in Dayton, Ohio. The site was allegedly contaminated with numerous hazardous chemicals that were used in the paper-making process over the course of 100 years. A commercial prope...

The Fourth Circuit affirmed a district court ruling that upheld a Virginia uranium mining ban on non-federal lands. In the early 1980s, a uranium deposit was discovered in Pittsylvania County, Virginia, on land owned by a mineral company. The Virginia Assembly requested that the state Coal and Energ...

A district court denied a state water and power board's motion to dismiss a CERCLA suit brought by two goverment entities for costs related to a drain project in Lansing, Michigan. The government entities sued the board for the increase in costs assessed for the building of a storm drain in a distri...

The Fourth Circuit held that a district court committed no reversible error in a case where an energy company chairman was convicted of conspiring to violate federal mine safety laws. The case involved an accident on April 5, 2010, at the Upper Big Branch coal mine in Montcoal, West Virginia, which ...