Justia Environmental Law Opinion Summaries

In 1979, plaintiff bought land from the Michigan State Transportation Commission. A decade later, he sued the Department of Transportation under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act, 42 U.S.C. 9601, claimed that there was contamination on the site. After discovery, the parties settled. The district court entered a consent decree in 1991 that required the Department to remediate the property by March 31, 1995. If by then the Department failed to make a good-faith effort to remediate, the decree required payment of $2,000 per month until remediation was complete. The Department failed to remediate or to pay the liquidated damages. On a 2009 motion to enforce the decree, the court held that the Department had waived its sovereign immunity and that a 10-year statute of limitations barred enforcement of the remediation obligation, but that each of the missed $2,000 payments triggered its own 10-year limitations period. The Sixth Circuit vacated, holding that the court should have relied on the doctrine of laches rather than the limitations period because the consent decree amounted to a remedy in equity. The waiver of immunity remained effective. View "Bergmann v. MI State Transp. Comm'n" on Justia Law

In this joint opinion, the Supreme Court addressed two direct appeals from the same water court proceedings. Meridian Service Metropolitan District's motion to intervene in a declaratory judgment action between Cherokee Metropolitan District and Upper Black Squirrel Creek Ground Water Management District (UBS) was denied by the water court. Meridian appealed the water court’s ruling to the Supreme Court. However, while Meridian’s appeal was pending, the declaratory judgment proceedings continued without Meridian’s participation, and the water court entered an order granting UBS's motion for declaratory judgment. Cherokee then appealed that order to the Supreme Court. The underlying water action began in 1998 as litigation between Cherokee and UBS over Cherokee’s water rights in the UBS basin. In 1999, Cherokee and UBS settled the litigation by entering a Stipulation and Release. In 2003, Cherokee and Meridian entered into an intergovernmental agreement (IGA) to build a new wastewater treatment facility. According to the IGA, wastewater from both Cherokee and Meridian would be treated at the facility, and the return flows would go back into the UBS basin. Upon learning of the Cherokee/Meridian Replacement Plan Application in late 2008, UBS filed a statement of objection with the Colorado Ground Water Commission and moved to dismiss the Replacement Plan Application. Meridian moved to intervene as of right in the underlying water action between UBS and Cherokee to challenge both the preliminary injunction and the motion for declaratory judgment. Upon review, the Supreme Court reversed the water court’s order denying Meridian’s motion to intervene, and vacated the water court's order granting declaratory judgment. View "Cherokee Metro. Dist. v. Meridian Serv. Metro. Dist." on Justia Law

The issue before the Supreme Court involved orders of the District Court for Water Division No. 2 regarding the administration of water on Alvarado Creek in Custer County. Applicants-Appellants Catherine and Peter LoPresti and Opposers-Appellants City of Fountain and Widefield Water and Sanitation District claimed the water court erred in voiding a rotational no-call agreement titled the "Beardsley Decree." Opposers-Appellees John Brandenburg, Douglas and Nancy Brandon, Dilley Family Trust, James D. Hood, Ronald Keyston, Arlie Riggs, Schneider Enterprises, Inc., Dr. Charles Schneider, and Mund Shaikly argued that the Beardsley Decree was an improperly noticed change in water rights, and as such the water court correctly declared it void. The Supreme Court held that the Beardsley Decree was a valid rotational no-call agreement because, and by its plain language, it did not sanction a change in water rights. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the water court. View "LoPresti v. Brandenburg" on Justia Law

Appellant Jim Widmyer, a commercial fisher, applied for a permit to fish for sablefish. The State distributes these permits largely on the basis of past participation in the sablefish fishery, specifically participation between 1975 and 1984. Though Appellant had been unable to land many fish between 1975 and 1984, argued that he qualified for participation due to extraordinary circumstances. The Commercial Fisheries Entry Commission and the superior court both determined that Appellant did not qualify for participation due to extraordinary circumstances. The Supreme Court affirmed those decisions after review of the Commission record. View "Widmyer v. Alaska" on Justia Law

Appellants appealed the dismissal of their lawsuit challenging the determination by the United States Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA (collectively, Agencies) that two reaches of the Santa Cruz River in southern Arizona constituted traditional navigable waters (TNW) so as to come within the Agencies' regulatory authority under the Clean Water Act (CWA), 33 U.S.C. 1311(a), 1362(12). Appellants challenged the TNW determination as both procedurally and substantively defective. The district court dismissed the complaint for lack of subject matter jurisdiction on the ground that the CWA precluded a pre-enforcement challenge to a TNW determination. The court affirmed the dismissal on the alternative jurisdictional ground that appellants lacked Article III standing. View "Natl' Assoc. of Home Builders, et al. v. EPA, et al." on Justia Law

This case stemmed from the EPA's enactment of twin rules in 2010, pursuant to the Clean Air Act (CAA), setting emissions standards for portland cement facilities - one under a section called National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP), 42 U.S.C. 7412(a)(4), the second under a section called New Source Performance Standards (NSPS), 42 U.S.C. 7411. PCA aruged that both rules violated the CAA and were arbitrary and capricious. Environmental Petitioners filed their own petition, arguing that the EPA abused its discretion by declining to include greenhouse gas emissions standards in its NSPS rule. The court agreed that the EPA acted arbitrarily when it promulgated the final NESHAP rule and therefore granted PCA's petition for review with respect to the EPA's denial of reconsideration on that issue. The court also stayed the NESHAP standards for clinker storage piles pending reconsideration by the EPA. The court denied PCA's petitions with respect to all other issues relating to NESHAP and NSPS, and dismissed Environmental Petitioners' petition for lack of jurisdiction. View "Portland Cement Assoc. v. EPA" on Justia Law

Defendant Town of Madison Planning Board appealed and Plaintiffs Thomas and Margaret Ettinger cross-appealed a superior court's decision which held that a private session of the Board violated the state's Right-to-Know Law (RTK) and denied Plaintiffs' request for attorney fees. In June 2009, the Pomeroy Limited Partnership (Pomeroy) received conditional approval from the Board to convert the buildings on its property to a condominium ownership form and to convey part of the property to the Nature Conservancy. In January 2010, Plaintiffs, whose property abuts the Pomeroy property, requested a public hearing to allow them to challenge the approval of the condominium plan. The Board scheduled a public hearing for March 3, 2010, to consider whether to grant final approval of the Pomeroy application. Plaintiffs' attorney appeared at that hearing. At the scheduled time of the hearing, the Board went into a private session for thirty minutes in which they read emails from the Board's attorney, a memorandum that summarized legal advice and letters from Plaintiffs' attorney. The Board then reopened the hearing and then after hearing Plaintiffs' attorney on the matter, granted final approval of the Pomeroy application. Plaintiffs sued alleging the Board violated the RTK law. The superior court agreed that the private session violated the RTK law, but refused to invalidate the Board's approval of the Pomeroy application. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that while the Board's written communications from its counsel may be protected from disclosure under the RTK law, the meeting itself need not have been closed to the public. Further, the Court affirmed the trial court's denial of Plaintiffs' attorney fees: "[w]e cannot find that … the Board should have known that the nonpublic session violated the Right-to-Know Law" to therefore entitle them to fees. View "Ettinger v. Town of Madison Planning Board " on Justia Law

Petitioners Thomas Morrissey, Dorothy Sears, Reginald Rogers, John Quimby, Michael O’Donnell, Jonathan Chamberlain, Patricia Reynolds, Richard and Barbara Sanders, Margaret Russell, and Robert and Judith Dupuis, appealed a superior court order that granted motions to dismiss filed by Respondents New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services and New Hampshire Fish and Game Department (collectively referred to as the State), and Town of Lyme (Town). Post Pond is in Lyme, held in trust by the State for public use. Petitioners own properties with frontage on Post Pond and the west side of the Clay Brook wetlands. The Town owns property on the east side of the Clay Brook wetlands as well as a contiguous parcel with frontage on Post Pond, which consists of a recreation area. In May 2009, Petitioners filed a petition in equity and writ of mandamus alleging that the Town's removal of beaver dams in the Pond that controlled the natural mean high water mark adversely affected their properties and disrupted the entire Clay Brook wetlands ecosystem. Upon review, the Supreme Court found that Petitioners' writ allegations were insufficient to state a claim for taking or nuisance against the Town, and that the trial court did not err in dismissing their claims. Further, the Court concluded that Petitioners failed to plead a claim entitling them to declaratory relief. View "Morrissey v. Town of Lyme" on Justia Law

The Supreme Court granted certiorari in this lawsuit to determine whether the lower courts correctly applied the standards for analyzing class action certification set forth in La. C.C.P. arts. 591, et seq. In February 2003, five individuals residing and owning property in Alexandria, Louisiana, in the vicinity of the Dura-Wood Treating Company, filed on their own behalf and as representatives of a class of persons who allegedly suffered damages as a result of operations at the wood-treating facility, a "Class Action Petition for Damages." The petition, which was amended several times, alleged that the Dura-Wood facility was primarily engaged in the production of creosote-treated railroad ties, and that significant quantities of creosote sludge were deposited into the canal and ponds. The appellate court ultimately found no reversible error in the district court’s judgment certifying the class, although it candidly acknowledged “a number of potential problems with the class as it had been defined." After reviewing the record and the applicable law, the Supreme Court found the lower courts erred in concluding that common questions of law or fact existed, that questions of law or fact common to members of the class predominated over any questions affecting only individual members, and that a class action was superior to other available methods for a fair and efficient adjudication of this matter. Accordingly, the Court reversed the judgment of the district court which granted Plaintiffs' motion for class certification. View "Price v. Martin" on Justia Law

Novus Utilities, Inc. sought a writ of mandamus from the Supreme Court to direct the Cullman Circuit Court to dismiss negligence and private-nuisance claims against it as time-barred. Eleven property owners residing in Cullman County sued Defendants the Hanceville Water Works & Sewer Board and Southwest Water Company, alleging that the defendants had allowed approximately two million gallons of untreated raw sewage from the sewage-treatment facility operated by the Board to be discharged into waterways in Cullman County. They alleged that on January 21, 30, and 31, 2008, the sewage treatment facility released the untreated raw sewage, and that release created a health hazard and damaged and devalued their property. Novus was added as a defendant to the suit as a subsidiary of Southwest. Novus moved to dismiss claims against it. After careful consideration, the Supreme Court concluded the trial court was correct in denying Novus' motion to dismiss, and denied its petition for a writ of mandamus to quash the trial court's judgment. View "Roberts v. Hanceville Water Works & Sewer Board" on Justia Law