Mealey's Pollution Liability : Mealey's : Legal News & Analysis

Mealey's Pollution Liability

August 07, 2025
Consultation Claim Dismissed Against Army Corps Over Alaska Gold Mine CWA Permit

ANCHORAGE, Alaska — An Alaskan tribe can pursue only one claim for relief pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers over allegations that the Corps failed to properly consult with it on the potential impact on resources, lands and assets when issuing a Clean Water Act (CWA) permit for an open pit gold mine after a federal judge granted a motion to dismiss a failure-to-consult claim filed by the mining company that intervened as a defendant in the case.
August 04, 2025
Hawaii Federal Judge: 4 Individuals, Group Can Bring CWA Fuel Release Claims

HONOLULU — Four out of 10 individuals and the environmental group they belong to have standing to bring claims against the U.S. Navy under the Clean Water Act (CWA) for releases from an underground fuel storage facility in Honolulu that allegedly contaminated surrounding waters, a federal judge in Hawaii ruled in partly granting the plaintiffs’ partial motion for summary judgment.
August 04, 2025
DuPont To Pay $875M To End New Jersey PFAS Litigation Tied To Chambers Works Site

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Attorney General Matthew J. Platkin announced Aug. 4 that the state has reached an agreement under which the Chemours Co., DuPont de Nemours Inc. and Corteva Inc. will pay $875 million to resolve all claims brought against 3M Co., EIDP Inc., formerly E.I. du Pont de Nemours & Co., and its affiliates related to contamination from per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) stemming from activity at DuPont’s Chambers Works plant.
August 01, 2025
Plaintiffs’ RCRA Lawsuit Alleges Perdue Farms Tainted Groundwater With PFAS

BALTIMORE — Two Maryland residents have filed a citizen suit under the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) against Perdue Farms Inc. and its affiliates in Maryland federal court, seeking seek declaratory and injunctive relief to remedy Perdue’s alleged violations of law, which the plaintiffs say have resulted in per- and polyfluorinated alkyl substances (PFAS) contamination of local groundwater supplies.
July 31, 2025
Alabama Utility Sued Over Capping Of Steam Plant Coal Ash Impoundment

ANNISTON, Ala. — A nonprofit public interest organization is suing Alabama Power in federal court over the “unlawful and defective capping” of a coal ash impoundment at its Gadsden Steam Plant near the Coosa River, alleging violations of the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (RCRA) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Coal Combustion Residuals (CCR) rule.
July 31, 2025
8th Circuit Panel Grants Motions To Vacate Appeal In NEPA Final Rule Dispute

ST. LOUIS — A panel of the Eighth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals dismissed an appeal as moot and vacated a lower court’s ruling that granted summary judgment to states that had challenged the Council on Environmental Quality’s (CEQ) implementing regulations for the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) on grounds that the regulations, known as the final rule, illegally sought to transform NEPA’s “carefully delineated procedures for environmental reviews” into “requirements to achieve broad and vague policy goals.”
July 31, 2025
6th Circuit Affirms Settlement Provisions Not Invalid In Superfund Cleanup Dispute

CINCINNATI — Citing different grounds, a Sixth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that a federal judge in Kentucky was correct when she affirmed summary judgment to Westlake Vinyls Inc. and denied summary judgment to global material solutions company Avient Corp. in the latter company’s second lawsuit challenging the terms of a settlement agreement for allocation of cleanup costs at a Superfund site.
July 28, 2025
2nd Circuit Denies Rehearing, Injunction In Conn. Landowner’s Wetlands CWA Case

NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel denied a petition for rehearing and a request for an injunction filed by a Connecticut landowner who was found to be liable for the remediation of his property for violating the Clean Water Act (CWA) by filling in protected wetlands without a permit and failing to adhere to warnings and notices from various federal agencies.
July 28, 2025
Posts Must Be Deleted, Injunction Denied Again In Golf Course Discharge Dispute

BUTTE, Mont. — A Montana federal judge ruled that an environmental group must delete several social media posts and captions relating to expert reports, is still not entitled to a preliminary injunction that would prevent a resort from filling water hazards on its golf course and cannot file an amended complaint regarding claims that the water hazards are contaminating a river in violation of the Clean Water Act (CWA).
July 28, 2025
Duty To Indemnify Owed For Settlement, Insured Says In Newly Filed Complaint

DALLAS — An insurer owes a duty to indemnify an insured for the settlement of an underlying suit filed against the insured because there is no evidence that the damages in the underlying suit were caused by pollutants, the insured contends in a July 25 complaint filed in Texas federal court.
July 24, 2025
9th Circuit Denies Rehearing, Nixing Dismissal Of NEPA, RCRA Case Against Air Force

SAN FRANCISCO — Despite the original dissenting judge voting to take up the case, the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals denied a petition filed by the U.S. Air Force for rehearing or rehearing en banc of a majority’s decision to reverse and remand a trial court’s dismissal of a lawsuit filed by a Guam-based nonprofit corporation challenging the agency’s decision to engage in hazardous waste disposal at Tarague Beach.
July 21, 2025
Panel Tosses CERCLA, State Claims, Says Sanctions Valid In N.Y. Site Cleanup Case

NEW YORK — A Second Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals panel ruled that a six-year statute of limitations pursuant to the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act commenced on an alloy and metal processing company’s claims for reimbursement of millions of dollars for response costs and damages associated with the release of hazardous substances at the site of a New York metal recycling operation and that spoliation sanctions for the company’s destruction of more than 23,000 pounds of documents was, in fact, warranted.
July 17, 2025
EPA Appeals Ruling That Halted Termination Of Environmental Grant Awards

BALTIMORE — The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency appealed to the Fourth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals a federal judge in Maryland’s order halting the federal agency’s termination of grants awarded to three nonprofit financial institutions for environmental projects and initiatives “in disadvantaged communities.”
July 17, 2025
Judge Says Federal Agencies Do Not Have To Restore Shuttered Environmental Sites

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A federal judge in the District of Columbia ruled that several agencies that were sued by a group of nonprofits for removing webpages that provided information about environmental justice and climate change do not have to put the sites back up right now in denying the groups’ motion for a preliminary injunction because they showed only economic harm and waited too long to seek relief.
July 16, 2025
5th Circuit: Causation Experts In Deepwater Horizon Case Properly Excluded

NEW ORLEANS — A Mississippi federal court did not err in awarding summary judgment to BP Exploration & Production and its affiliate after finding that a man’s experts retained to opine on how his injuries were connected to exposure to chemicals during remediation activities following the Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill were inadmissible, the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals held.
July 16, 2025
Groups Sue EPA Over Water Contamination From CERCLA Cleanup At Tenn. Facility

WASHINGTON, D.C. — Several environmental nonprofit organizations representing recreational users of bodies of water in the area of a former U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) nuclear weapons facility in east Tennessee are suing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia for implementing cleanup activities that allegedly violate requirements of the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act of 1980 and other federal directives.
July 10, 2025
States Want To Intervene In Youths’ Suit Over Fossil Fuel Executive Orders

BUTTE, Mont. — A group of 19 sovereign states and one territory led by Montana want in on a federal lawsuit filed by 22 minors and young adults against President Donald J. Trump and several government agencies seeking to rescind and declare unconstitutional a series of executive orders that include directives to increase fossil fuel production, alleging “unique interests” in the case due to threats to their economies, use of land and budgets if the orders are eliminated.
July 10, 2025
Motion Denied, But Company To Fund Contaminated Cows’ Care In Pipeline Leak Dispute

POCATELLO, Idaho — A federal judge in Idaho ruled that a Caribou Mountain Range cattle-farming couple must continue caring for nearly 750 unsellable cows and calves that were likely exposed to toxic materials from a 2023 pipeline leak but that the company that operates the line must bear the cost of preserving the animals during discovery proceedings of a lawsuit the couple filed over environmental contamination of their ranch.
July 02, 2025
Exxon’s Petition For Review Of $14.25M CAA Penalty Denied By High Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition filed by ExxonMobil asking for review of an order issued by a “fractured” en banc Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals that requires the company to pay a $14.25 million penalty for air pollution incidents at a Texas facility.
July 02, 2025
EPA Petition Regarding Venue Dispute Over CAA Air Quality Standards Denied

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency asking the court to determine whether the District of Columbia Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is the proper venue to decide challenges to the EPA’s decision to disapprove state implementation plans for new air quality standards under the Clean Air Act (CAA).
July 02, 2025
Washington Port Facility CWA Permit Dispute Will Not Be Heard By U.S. Supreme Court

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court denied a petition for certiorari filed by the operators of a Tacoma, Wash., marine cargo terminal that asked whether the Ninth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals was correct in ruling that two state-issued National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permits applied to the entirety of the terminal where stormwater discharges entered into Puget Sound and that private citizens could not bring actions in federal court to enforce certain state permit conditions under the Clean Water Act (CWA).
July 01, 2025
Supreme Court Grants Petition Challenging Venue In CAA Fuel Standards Dispute

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 granted a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by two trade associations that advocate for the expansion of the use of ethanol and other biofuels that challenged whether the Fifth Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals is the proper venue to review exemptions from the Clean Air Act’s (CAA) Renewable Fuels Standards (RFS) program that mandates the amount of fuel to be blended annually into the national supply of gasoline and diesel fuel, with the high court also vacating and remanding the Fifth Circuit’s ruling in light of a decision in EPA v. Calumet Shreveport Refining, LLC, et al.
July 01, 2025
Respondents: CWA Pipeline Permitting Process Case ‘Unworthy’ Of High Court Review

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A drilling contractor and the owner and operator of a 700-mile natural gas pipeline that traverses multiple states argue in a June 30 response that a petition for a writ of certiorari filed by Ohio asking the U.S. Supreme Court to clarify the time frame to waive responses to proposed projects affecting state waters under the Clean Water Act (CWA) permitting application process and determine whether states lose their abilities to protect their waters if they fail to participate in the process is “profoundly unworthy of this Court’s review” and there is “no split authority to address” either question.
June 30, 2025
EPA Sued By More Entities Over Elimination Of Federal Grant Program

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A group of 23 nonprofit organizations, higher education institutions, tribes and local governments, on behalf of themselves and a proposed class, sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia alleging the agency acted “unlawfully” when it eliminated a federal block grant program designed to help underserved and environmentally challenged communities shortly after the new administration took office.
June 30, 2025
Recent Case Cues High Court’s Remand Of License Veto For N.M. Nuclear Fuel Storage

WASHINGTON, D.C. — The U.S. Supreme Court on June 30 granted petitions for writ of certiorari to a global energy technology company and the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and vacated and remanded for further consideration their challenges to an appellate decision that an exception to the Hobbs Act and the Atomic Energy Act (AEA) stripped the federal agency’s authority to issue a license to store spent nuclear fuel at a proposed facility in New Mexico in light of a decision in a similar case.