"When the well is dry, we [will] learn the worth of water."

—Ben Franklin, a U.S. Founding Father

One of the more daunting tasks facing environmental practitioners over the past decade or two has been the recovery of cleanup costs and related relief at sites contaminated with petroleum substances. Parties seeking relief face significant hurdles under the federal environmental statutes. The key federal environmental cost-recovery statute, the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) often provides little help because of its petroleum exclusion.

At first glance, the California Desert Conservation Area (CDCA) is a 25-million-acre expanse of sand dunes, brush lands, rock formations, and loneliness and desolation. However, a cursory look at the landscape belies the desert's significant historical, scenic, archeological, environmental, biological, cultural, scientific, educational, recreational, and economic resources" that the U.S. Congress recognized when it dedicated the area in 1976.

The federal courts are in agreement that an action by a potentially responsible party (PRP) against another PRP to recover privately incurred response costs is a claim for contribution in which the plaintiff is limited to the relief that is available under §113(f)(1) of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA).

Editors' Summary: Environmental professionals continue to consider the implications of the 2006 U.S. Supreme Court landmark decision regarding CWA jurisdiction, Rapanos v. United States. In this Article, Matthew A. Axtell uses Justice William O. Douglas'travel description of Alaska's Last Lake as a hypothetical to test the potential impact of the 2001 SWANCC decision as well as Rapanos on the federal government's CWA authority in Alaska. He begins by analyzing the CWA regulatory regime that applied for many years to Alaskan tundra wetlands before SWANCC and Rapanos.