Buying commercial real estate requires special attention to potential environmental problems and the laws that regulate them. A lawyer advising a buyer of commercial real estate must identify and resolve existing or potential environmental problems or risk an unhappy client.
Indiana has scrapped plans to buy land at an Ohio River site under consideration for the state’s newest shipping port, Gov. Eric Holcomb announced Thursday.
Hendricks County families who live with the odor from a nearby 8,000-hog farm for years have lost their nuisance, negligence and trespass claims against the concentrated animal feeding operation. After unsuccessfully seeking relief from the Indiana Court of Appeals and a divided Indiana Supreme Court, they are now turning to the U.S. Supreme Court.
For the last 50 years, Americans have had a say in how these projects impacted their neighborhoods through the National Environmental Policy Act. But environmental groups and lawyers have concerns that could change under a new Trump Administration rule set to take effect this week.
The United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) has identified PFAS as an “emerging contaminant.” The agency has released two peer-reviewed documents addressing health impacts posed by the chemicals. EPA also listed PFOA and PFOS on its Contaminant Candidate List (CCL) — which means they are now subject to regulatory decision making and information collection.
On June 22, the Trump administration’s new Navigable Waters Protection Rule went into effect and was immediately subject to multiple legal challenges throughout the country. The Navigable Waters Protection Rule is likely to have far-reaching impacts on the development and use of land across the United States.
Six former Environmental Protection Agency chiefs are calling for an agency reset after President Donald Trump’s regulation-chopping, industry-minded first term, backing a detailed plan by former EPA staffers that ranges from renouncing political influence in regulation to boosting climate-friendly electric vehicles.
A family-owned trash collection business hoping to set up a new transfer station in Owen County won a reversal from the Indiana Court of Appeals following its struggle to proceed due to a dispute with county officials.
A federal court ruling in favor of the insurer of a wood processing facility in Elkhart that was the subject of years of environmental litigation brought by neighbors was affirmed Thursday. The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals held Westfield Insurance owed no duty to cover its insured against an environmental damages award of more than $50 million.
Environmental tort actions fall under the larger rubric of toxic torts and involve personal injury and property damage claims for releases of environmental contamination. But what happens when, as they often do, the regulatory cleanup takes years or even decades?
A group of Clark County neighbors have prevailed in an interlocutory appeal in their proposed class-action lawsuit that claims a Jeffersonville landfill emits noxious odors and negatively impacts the surrounding residential area.
An Indiana utility that committed the most permit violations in the state in the last three years is negotiating a deal with state environmental regulators to keep one of its power plants open.
Hundreds of families who were unknowingly exposed for years to high levels of lead in Northern Indiana have secured a victory against state and local entities after the Indiana Court of Appeals affirmed the denial of the latter’s motion for judgment on the pleadings.
The federal government is seeking the public’s input on its plan to clean up groundwater contamination at a Superfund site in Indianapolis that’s tainted with chemicals used by a dry cleaning company.
A major utility’s plan to close five Indiana coal ash ponds at a power plant along Lake Michigan and move coal ash to a landfill has sparked concerns from environmental activists about how the dust kicked up by that project will be controlled.
Environmental groups and officials in a southern Indiana county are suing the U.S. Forest Service over its plan to burn or harvest parts of the Hoosier National Forest, alleging that it could taint drinking water for more than 140,000 people.
Claiming an IDEM official gave “disparate treatment out of sheer vindictiveness” and “orchestrated a campaign of official harassment,” environmental consultants and business owners have filed a lawsuit against the Indiana Department of Environment Management and Douglas R. Louks, deputy assistant commissioner of the IDEM Office of Land Quality.
The US Supreme Court ruled Thursday that sewage plants and other industries cannot avoid environmental requirements under landmark clean-water protections when they send dirty water on an indirect route to rivers, oceans and other navigable waterways.
The United States Supreme Court delivered a setback Monday to Montana homeowners who are seeking additional cleanup of arsenic left over from years of copper smelting.
Earth Day is upon us, and the World Intellectual Property Organization has announced a theme of “Innovate for a Green Future” for World Intellectual Property Day on April 26. Christopher Brown offers two bits of eco-minded intellectual property law.