A California appellate court reversed and remanded a lower court decision invalidating a settlement agreement between the state and three water and irrigation agencies concerning the intra-state right to water from the Colorado River. In addition to allocating water rights within the state, the sett...

A district court held that the state of Washington is not liable as an arranger under CERCLA for hazardous waste contamination stemming from mining operations on state lands. The state entered into mining contracts with a Canadian mining company that allowed the company to excavate and remove metal-...

A district court held that an oil company is liable for property damages caused by its predecessor-in-interest who conducted oil and gas exploration and production activities on the site under three subleases. Article 128 of the Louisiana Mineral Code provides that a sublessee acquires the rights an...

The Court of Federal Claims held that the U.S. government is liable for costs an oil company incurred cleaning up contamination stemming from the production of aviation gasoline at its Baytown, Texas, and Baton Rouge, Louisiana, refineries during World War II. In the early 1940s, the company's prede...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision denying a natural gas company's petition challenging an air district rule requiring the company to monitor, record, and report changes in the quality of natural gas and air pollutant levels. The district acted reasonably in finding that ga...

The Supreme Court of Louisiana held that a property owner who discovered radioactive contamination on his land after he purchased it may not file suit against oil and trucking companies allegedly responsible for that contamination. Under Louisiana law, a property owner has no right or actual interes...

The court affirms the dismissal of a land trust's action alleging that a coal company that owned the mineral rights to a tract of the trust's land violated the Surface Mining Control and Reclamation Act (SMCRA) and other federal and state laws. The trust alleged that the company's failure to comply ...