Your Guide to Emerging Issues in Environmental Regulation and Litigation.
Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal recently struck down a 2016 Coral Gables’ law that prohibited the sale and use of food-related polystyrene containers (i.e., Styrofoam) by food service providers and stores. This decision reverses a trial court decision granting a motion for summary judgment in favor of the city and finding that the three …
New York continues to strengthen its regulatory approach to 1,4-dioxane. Last month, the state Department of Health adopted the nation’s first maximum contaminant level (MCL) for 1,4-dioxane in drinking water, The regulation is working its way toward implementation and is now in the public comment period. Following assessment of public comments, the proposed regulation will either be …
On Friday, August 23, 2019, Gov. Murphy signed into law an amendment to New Jersey’s 2009 Site Remediation Reform Act (SSRA)—a law that privatized many responsibilities previously handled by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) concerning the remediation of contaminated sites. The SSRA created what is called the Licensed Site Remediation Professional (LSRP) …
Illinois has filed suit against a company that provides water to a Chicago suburb after it made changes to the chemical additives in the water supply without permission from state regulators. The suit goes on to allege that the change caused lead to contaminate the village’s drinking water. The problems started in 2017 when Aqua …
If you’ve been following PFAS-related news you’ll know that Michigan has been one of the hardest hit states when it comes to this emerging contaminant. The state is one of a handful in the nation to take the lead in attempting to set some of the nation’s toughest drinking water limits for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances …
As previously addressed in the Environmental Law Monitor, lead was found in Newark, New Jersey’s water supply. The city has now attempted to assuage fears by providing water filters to residents in affected areas. According to the EPA, that isn’t enough, and the city has begun offering water bottles to concerned residents after a sample …
As hydraulic fracturing continues to be a hot topic among Pennsylvania’s Appellate Courts, the Commonwealth Court (PA’s intermediary appellate division), recently released an opinion addressing a multitude of state-level regulations concerning oil and gas operations, helping to define the rules by which drillers must abide within the state. At issue in Marcellus Shale Coalition v. …
Cleanup work has resumed at a former chemical plant in central Michigan that’s become one of the country’s costliest Superfund sites. However, these efforts come with a new twist. The EPA plans to test a new method to remove soil contaminants in floodplains downstream from a former chemical plant in central Michigan with hopes that …
Michigan could be the first state in the nation to establish maximum contaminant levels for the chemical, GenX. This comes after a Science Advisory Workgroup, made up of three environmental and health experts, listed GenX among seven chemicals deserving of regulation in the state’s drinking water in late June. Although it gained notoriety for contaminating …
On July 25, 2019, Judge Winifred Smith of the Alameda County, California Superior Court reduced a $2 billion judgment entered by a jury against Monsanto Company, holding that the damages award was unconstitutionally high. The damages award was the third against the Bayer AG subsidiary in cases regarding whether popular herbicide Roundup causes Non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. The court …