The court upholds as reasonable and fair a settlement agreement in a citizen suit challenging the federal government's failure to perform Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) duties concerning mountaintop mining in West Virginia. The agreement purported to settle environmental groups' claims ...
The court holds a landowner liable under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (FWPCA) for discharging polluted stormwater without a permit into a stream on his property that flows into ponds on his neighbors' property. The discharges occurred when the landowner was harvesting timber and developin...
The court holds that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) violated Safe Drinking Water Act §1412(b)(3)(A)'s statutory mandate to use the best available evidence when it implemented the chloroform maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG). During rulemaking for the chloroform MCLG, EPA ostensi...
The U.S. Supreme Court holds that a Native American tribe's and U.S. claims to additional water rights from the Colorado River are not precluded by a previous Court decision or by a 1983 consent decree entered into by the United States and the tribe. The tribe's and the government's present claims a...
The court holds that a trial court erred in resolving water right priorities in an overdrafted basin with a "physical solution" that relies on the equitable apportionment doctrine but does not consider the affected owners' legal rights in the basin. Landowners who had overlying water rights in the M...
The court holds that the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) does not apply to the Secretary of the Interior's designation of critical habitat under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). The court first holds that an Oregon county has standing to challenge the Secretary's failure to comply with NEP...
The court holds that the U.S. government is not liable as an operator under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for hazardous waste cleanup costs at an abandoned mine site. The court first holds that CERCLA clearly exposes the federal government to suit...
The court holds that a defendant-operator company and a defendant-transporter company are liable under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act (CERCLA) for costs incurred in cleaning up the MIG/De Wane Superfund site in Illinois, and orders them each to pay over $2 ...
The court dismisses a township's and construction company's lawsuit against a city under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for failing to extend wastewater treatment services outside the city's boundary, even though the outlying area was included in the city's plan for a federally funded waste treatment pla...
The D.C. Circuit held that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) violated the Endangered Species Act (ESA) by failing to make available for public comment critical information in connection with a developer's incidental take permit application and by failing to make a statutorily mandated finding...