Natural Resource Damages & Environmental Justice
Environmental Agencies, Superfund Cleanups, and Managing Enforcement Actions
What are PFAS and Why Should We Care?
Volatile Times in Vapor Intrusion Regulation: A Legal and Technical Update
Three years after a massive spill at a Los Angeles wastewater facility sent millions of gallons of sewage into Santa Monica Bay, the city has agreed to spend more than $20 million on improvements to remedy the environmental...more
In general, environmental law seeks to protect public health and the environment by providing for liability, compensation, cleanup, and emergency response to the release or disposal of hazardous substances. And more...more
Wagner v. Exxon Mobil Corporation is an example of the misfortune that can befall the purchaser who assumes the burden of comprehensive, one-sided indemnity obligations. We will disregard evidentiary and other issues in this...more
Abstract - Determining the amount of restoration needed to compensate the public for injury to natural resources is central to estimating natural resource damages (NRDs). Formal restoration scaling methods have not...more
Causation, an issue courts often wrestle with when deciding insurance coverage issues, lands the starring role in our February Insurance Update. •A county experienced higher costs due to the opioid crisis. Does its...more
Actualmente cursan en el Congreso de la República de Colombia dos proyectos de ley que pretenden modificar o derogar la Ley 1333 de 2009. Por un lado se encuentra el Proyecto de Ley 146 — Senado "Por la cual se modifica la...more
In 1959 Bethlehem Steel’s Sparrows Point facility, located on the Patapsco River near the mouth of Baltimore Harbor, was the biggest steelmaking facility in the world. With close to 40,000 employees, Sparrows Point over many...more
It was 41 years ago that one of the more bizarre events in U.S. environmental history took place: two U.S. EPA officials were “kidnapped” by an angry environmental group in a working class neighborhood in New York. As many of...more
The US District Court for the Central District of California issued an opinion on December 10 in the decades-long fight between the US Environmental Protection Agency and several oil companies over payment of the United...more
The United States Federal District Court (E.D. Louisiana) (“Court”) addressed in a November 5th Order an issue arising out of a federal Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”) citizen suit action. See Residents of...more
In Montrose Chemical Corp. v. Superior Court, 2020 WL 1671560 (April 6, 2020), the California Supreme Court held that, when one primary policy exhausts in a continuing injury claim, the excess insurer sitting above that...more
Following a 2007 settlement concerning the allocation of investigation and remediation costs incurred due to environmental contamination at an industrial complex, the parties agreed to resolve the litigation between the...more
In recent years, Wisconsin generally has been a pro-policyholder jurisdiction when it comes to long-tail environmental coverage cases. That trend continues with a decision by a Wisconsin appellate court in a case involving...more
On June 3, 2019, the United States lodged a proposed Consent Decree under the Clean Water Act and the Oil Pollution Act that would resolve a suite of natural resource damages (NRD) claims by federal, state, and tribal...more
A United States District Court (Western District of Washington) addressed the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (“EPA”) request for access to real property in King County, Washington to undertake certain...more
Lawsuits to recover cleanup costs and property damages resulting from environmental contamination can be expensive and time-consuming. Plaintiffs should be sure their claims are timely before embarking on the litigation path....more
The United States District Court (Mississippi-Western Division) (“Court”) issued a February 16th Memorandum Opinion and Order (“Opinion”) addressing whether a landowner’s common-law contamination claim related to oil and gas...more
In United States v. Torriero, the Second Circuit (Chin, Droney, Restani by designation) vacated by summary order a $765,561 restitution order relating to costs incurred by the EPA in cleaning up a property that the defendant...more
Forest Oil Corporation v. El Rucio Land and Cattle Inc. et al deserves your attention for four reasons: You won’t see another one involving damage to a rhinoceros pen...more
The Washington State Court of Appeals recently held the Department of Natural Resources (DNR) liable as an operator or owner of a contaminated site under the Model Toxics Control Act, RCW 70.105D (MTCA), in Pope Resources, LP...more
The Washington State Department of Ecology (Ecology) recently rolled out significant changes to its Voluntary Cleanup Program (VCP). The VCP covers the largest number of cleanup sites in Washington and is a key part of many...more
Since the beginning of 2015, at least 77 companies in the oil and gas industry have sought bankruptcy relief in the United States. The flow of oil and gas company bankruptcies shows no sign of slowing down and, based on the...more
While speaking at a recent conference on natural resource damages, the Secretary of the New Mexico Environment Department, Ryan Flynn, outlined New Mexico’s grievances against the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”)...more