The Ninth Circuit recently reversed a grant of summary judgment by the United States District Court for the Central District of California in California Department of Toxic Substances Control v. Westside Delivery, LLC, No. 16-56558, 2018 WL 1973715 (9th Cir. Apr. 27, 2018), holding that a defendant who purchased real property at a tax sale had a “contractual relationship” with the previous owner “in connection with” the polluting activities, and therefore was not entitled to a third-party defense under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act of 1980 (CERCLA). In this case, California’s environmental agency, the Department of Toxic Substances Control (DTSC), sought to recover clean up costs from a subsequent owner of the contaminated property and the owner asserted as a defense, recognized under CERCLA, that the contamination was caused by a third party prior to it taking title with whom it had no contractual relationship. The matter before the court was one of first impression in the Ninth Circuit: “Does a defendant who buys real property at a tax sale have a ‘contractual relationship’ with the previous owner of the property within the meaning of CERCLA?” Id. at *1. The court’s affirmative answer will give pause to prospective tax-defaulted property purchasers who may find themselves liable for cleanup costs under CERCLA. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: California, CERCLA, Cost Recovery, Innocent Party, Ninth Circuit, Real Estate, Superfund

On April 24, 2018, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board issued a decision denying a Petition for Supersedeas filed by Center for Coalfield Justice and Sierra Club which had sought to enjoin Consol Pennsylvania Coal Company, LLC (“Consol”) from mining under a stream called Polen Run located in Ryerson Station State Park See Center for Coalfield Justice v. DEP, EHB Docket No. 2018-028-R (Opinion issued Apr. 24, 2018) (“CCJ III”). The Board’s opinion reinforces the Board’s prior decisions applying Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution (“Environmental Rights Amendment” or “ERA”) in the context of a permitting decision in light of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court’s decision in Pa. Environmental Defense Found. v. Commonwealth, 161 A.3d 911 (Pa. 2017) (“PEDF”).  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Administrative Appeals, Administrative Hearing, Citizen Suit, Clean Streams Law, Environmental Rights Amendment, Minimg, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Permits

Last Thursday, the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals held that environmental groups could bring a citizen suit under the Clean Water Act (“CWA”) against the owner of a ruptured gasoline pipeline where the pipeline had been repaired but the spilled gasoline allegedly continued to travel through groundwater and into nearby surface waters regulated by the CWA as “navigable waters.” Upstate Forever et al. v. Kinder Morgan Energy Partners LP et al., No. 17-1640, 2018 WL 1748154 (4th Cir. April 12, 2018). In doing so, the Court weighed in on an issue that was of first impression to the Fourth Circuit and has significant implications for CWA liability – whether the discharge of a pollutant that moves through ground water before reaching navigable waters may constitute a discharge of a pollutant pursuant to the CWA. The Court also resolved the preliminary jurisdictional issue by finding that the plaintiffs had adequately alleged an “ongoing violation” as necessary to allege a CWA violation in the district court.   Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Citizen Suit, Clean Water Act, Fourth Circuit, Navigability, Oil and Gas, Pipelines, Water

Last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued its highly anticipated opinion in EQT Prod. Co. v. Dep’t of Envtl. Prot., No. 6 MAP 2017, 2018 WL 1516385, (Pa. Mar. 28, 2018), holding that the Clean Streams Law (“CSL”) does not authorize the Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) to impose daily penalties for the ongoing, continuing presence of pollutants in waters of the Commonwealth. In the 5-to-2 decision, which affirmed in part the Commonwealth Court’s preceding opinion, the Court ruled that to construe the language of the CSL as allowing penalties for the movement of pollutants from one water body to another (DEP’s “water-to-water” theory) was not only unsupported by the statutory language, but would also expose the regulated community to potentially massive civil penalties, and as such, DEP’s penalty calculations including penalties for the days the pollutants remained in the affected groundwater after the initial discharge were excessive. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Administrative Appeals, Case Update, Cases to Watch, Civil Penalties, Clean Streams Law, Contamination, Decisions of Note, Declaratory Relief, Drilling, EHB, Enforcement Action, Groundwater, Oil and Gas, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Remediation, Water, Wetlands

Earlier this month, in B&R Resources, LLC v. DEP, No. 1234 C.D. 2017 (March 15, 2018), Pennsylvania’s Commonwealth Court held that the sole managing member of a limited liability company may be personally liable for his company’s failure to plug certain abandoned wells. In doing so, the Commonwealth Court clarified that the participation theory of liability, which essentially extends liability from a corporation to its officers who “participated” in corporate wrongdoing, may encompass not only intentional misconduct by an officer but also deliberate inaction. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Energy, Exploration, Marcellus Shale, Oil and Gas, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Pipelines

Last month, in U.S. v. CITGO Petro. Corp., 711 Fed. Appx. 237 (5th Cir. 2017), the United States Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit affirmed an $81 million civil penalty assessment under the federal Clean Water Act (“CWA”) against CITGO Petroleum Corp. (“CITGO”), for unpermitted wastewater discharges from its plant in Lake Charles, Louisiana when a severe rainstorm caused two storage tanks to fail and over 2 million gallons of oil to be discharged into local waterways.  In the underlying case before the United States District Court for the Western District of Louisiana, CITGO conceded liability, and therefore, the only issue for trial was the total penalty to be assessed.  After a two-week bench trial, the District Court determined that CITGO had failed to properly maintain its wastewater storage tanks and allowed sludge and waste oil to accumulate in the tanks, which lessened their total storage capacity and ability to withstand a storm surge.  The District Court ultimately assessed a $6 million civil penalty against CITGO, which EPA appealed.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Civil Penalties, Clean Water Act, Cleanup, Contamination, EPA, Fifth Circuit, Louisiana, Storage Tank, Stormwater, Water

On February 12, 2018, the Appellate Division of the Superior Court of New Jersey held that environmental groups had standing to challenge on appeal the trial court’s ruling accepting DEP’s $225 million settlement with Exxon Mobil for Natural Resource Damages (“NRD”), which include compensation for the injury and destruction of natural resources and the public’s loss of the use and enjoyment of those resources under New Jersey’s Spill Compensation and Control Act (“Spill Act”). See New Jersey Dep’t of Envtl. Prot. v. Exxon Mobil Corp., No. A-0668-15T1, 2018 WL 823001 (N.J. Super. Ct. App. Div. Feb. 12, 2018). The appellate court ultimately upheld the settlement, notably the largest NRD settlement in New Jersey’s history, finding that it was a reasonable compromise and was in the public interest.  Two weeks later, however, the environmental groups whom the Court found had standing to appeal, including the New Jersey Sierra Club and the Delaware Riverkeeper filed a Petition for Certification, requesting that the New Jersey Supreme Court review the decision.  Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Intervention, Natural Resource Damages, New Jersey, Spill Act

In an opinion issued on February 12, 2018 in the case of Cooper Crouse-Hinds LLC et al. v. City of Syracuse et al., Case No. 5:16-cv-01201 (N.D.N.Y. Feb. 12, 2018), Judge Mae D’Agostino of the United States District Court for the Northern District of New York weighed in on the issue of when state court orders for removal and remediation resolve a potentially responsible party's liability to the government under Section 113 of CERCLA, and in this case allowing, for at least the time being, Section 107 claims to proceed where there was no clear guidance from the Second Circuit. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: CERCLA, Cleanup, Contribution, Cost Recovery, Landfill, New York, Remediation, Removal, Second Circuit, Superfund

Do indirect discharges of pollutants into navigable waters amount to a violation of the Clean Water Act? On February 1^st, the Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit held in Hawaii Wildlife Fund et al. v. County of Maui, No. 15-17447, that discharges of pollutants originating from a point source violate the Clean Water Act even if the pollutants first enter another means of conveyance—in this case groundwater—before entering into a navigable waterway. Despite recent EPA efforts to roll back certain environmental regulations, the court gave no deference to EPA’s amicus curiae proposed liability rule requiring a “direct hydrological connection” between the point source and the navigable water. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Clean Water Act, Drilling, Effluents, EPA, Ninth Circuit, NPDES, Oil and Gas, Permits, Rapanos, Water

On Monday, the Pennsylvania Environmental Hearing Board (the “Board”) issued an adjudication in Logan v. DEP, EHB Docket No. 2016-091-L (Adjudication issued Jan. 29, 2018), in which the Board dismissed an appeal challenging the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection’s (“DEP”) issuance of an air quality plan approval to Purdue Agribusiness LLC (“Purdue”) for construction of a soybean solvent extraction plant. In upholding the plan approval, the Board rejected the appellants’ argument that DEP’s issuance of the plan approval violated Article I, Section 27 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, known as the Environmental Rights Amendment. Read More »

Share | Email| Comments|  Topics: Administrative Appeals, Air, Environmental Rights Amendment, Pennsylvania, Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, Permits