A district court held that the FWS' biological opinion (BiOp) for the U.S. Army's proposed ongoing and future operations at Fort Huachuca—a major military installation in southeastern Arizona—violates the ESA and is arbitrary and capricious. The BiOp concluded that the operations will not jeopar...

A district court dismissed an insurance company's CERCLA §§107 and 112 claim for response costs incurred by one of its policy holders seeking to redevelop the site of a former aerospace manufacturing facility. Because insurance payments made pursuant to a contractual obligation are not "respo...

A district court approved two consent decrees settling Colorado's claims for natural resource damages against two waste companies and the city and county of Denver in connection with the Lowry Landfill Superfund site. The settlement, which requires the performing parties to each pay $500,000...

A district court, on motions for reconsideration and for leave to amend counterclaims, held that a gas company may seek recovery costs under CERCLA and the Michigan Natural Resources and Environmental Protection Act against the plaintiffs in the case. The plaintiffs seek recovery of costs they ...

The First Circuit affirmed a lower court decision denying a motion to enjoin Maine state officials from allowing the use of any foothold traps to prevent the incidental take of Canadian lynx, a threatened species. The lower court did not abuse its discretion in denying the motion, as the ani...

A district court, on a motion to amend judgment, extended the FWS' deadline for completing its biological opinion (BiOp) for the threatened delta smelt as well as the Bureau of Reclamation's deadline to complete review of the FWS' reasonable and prudent alternative (RPA) under NEPA. In December...

A Washington appellate court held that the former owners of contaminated property may be held liable under the state's Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA). Fifteen years after the former owner sold the property to a port, the port notified the former owners that they were potentially liable part...

A district court held that the owners of contaminated property may be held liable under RCRA for obstructing the former owner's ability to clean up the site. After purchasing the property from a power company, the owners filed suit against the power company under RCRA. The company then filed...

A district court denied a property owner's motion to add RCRA claims to its CERCLA and state law action against a dry cleaner for groundwater contamination. The property owner failed to comply with RCRA's notice requirements. The boilerplate and conclusory RCRA notices provided by the owner fai...

The D.C. Circuit denied a petition challenging a magnesium plant's inclusion on the NPL. EPA uses a hazard ranking system (HRS) to determine whether to place a site on the NPL. Petitioners argued that EPA erred in calculating the HRS score and that if these errors were corrected, the site's ...