Every week there’s more news surrounding the mystifying nature of PFAS chemicals. Our firm recently published a well-received article that explored the state of PFAS and what the horizon holds for regulation and litigation. And this week we have more news on the PFAS front. We should buckle-up because it’s only going to heat-up from here. In November 2017, we reported on the New Jersey scientists that were urging the state to impose a strict limit of 13 ppt for
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It has been about three years since Legionnaires’ disease made national headlines associated with the cooling tower of the Opera House Hotel in the South Bronx. Legionnaires’ disease is a serious type of pneumonia caused by a waterborne pathogen known as Legionella. It is contracted when susceptible individuals inhale water droplets or mist containing elevated levels of legionella bacteria. New York City has as many as 1,200 towers that are evaporative heat exchangers usually installed on the top of a building as part of its air conditioning system in which water
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Widespread personal injury litigation based on exposure to Roundup, the widely-used pesticide produced by the Monsanto Company, is no longer a plaintiffs’ bar pipe-dream — it is close to becoming a reality. Hundreds of cases have been filed, mostly in St. Louis and San Francisco, and the first trial of such a matter will commence this week in California state court. As we have reported previously, there has been broad and long-running controversy over whether glyphosate, the active ingredient in
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To date, nine states and Washington, DC, have legalized marijuana for recreational use for adults over the age of 21. Additionally, medical marijuana is legal in another 29 states. The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws has stated that “With over 60 percent of Americans now supporting the full legalization of marijuana for adults, the momentum behind marijuana law reform will not only continue but increase as we head into 2018.” Despite remaining illegal on the federal level,
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In October 2016, New York’s Appellate Division held that the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) overstepped its boundaries when it unilaterally undertook the remediation of FMC’s site in Niagara County, New York. FMC Corp. v. New York State Dept. of Envtl. Conservation, 143 A.D.3d 1128 (3d Dept. 2016). NY’s highest court – the Court of Appeals – smacked down the Appellate Division’s ruling and reversed it. The facts: For over 60 years, FMC has owned and operated a 103-acre property in the Village
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An industrial accident last month at the Hi-Crush mine in Whitehall, Wisconsin is shaping-up to have some potentially significant environmental effects. A contractor’s bulldozer slid into a deep settling basin at the mine in western Wisconsin, leading to an hours-long effort to rescue the man from a 15-foot-deep pond. Rescuers freed the driver after emptying an estimated 10 million gallons of water from the pond into a Trempealeau River tributary. The settling basin contained a large amount of sludge- water,
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Join Goldberg Segalla’s John A. Lee on June 12, 2018 at Perrin Conferences Environmental Risk and Litigation Conference in New York City, which will cover topics such as “The Trump Administration’s Impacts on Environmental Litigation” and “PFAS: Evolution from Emerging Contaminant to Frequent Headliner.” John will be part of a panel discussion titled “The Environmental Impact of Climate Change.” The panel will explore projected regional climate change impacts and its potential effects on the insurance industry, as well as the impact of traditional and
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A pollution lawsuit initially filed against three major oil companies is settling for almost $200 million, with additional parties still negotiating. In 2007, the state of New Jersey sued a number of oil companies in U.S. District Court for the Southern District of New York over their usage of MTBE (methyl tertiary butyl ether). MTBE was a synthetic chemical added to gasoline to help fuel burn more completely and reduce tailpipe emissions from vehicles. MTBE was approved for use in
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The Pennsylvania Supreme Court recently decided to preserve an injunction against the Department of Environmental Protection of Pennsylvania (DEP) that prevents the enforcement of various new rules pertaining to hydraulic fracturing operations. In the case of The Marcellus Shale Coalition v. Department of Environmental Protection, et. al., industry organization, the Marcellus Shale Coalition (MSC), had sought a preliminary injunction, challenging the validity of several regulations relating to unconventional gas well operations (which includes hydraulic fracturing, as opposed to traditional oil
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The Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR) is a weekly epidemiological digest for the United States published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). It is considered by many practicing in the public health sector to be the primary publication for sharing public health information and recommendations that have been received by the CDC from state health departments. On May 18, 2018 the CDC published “Outbreaks Associated with Treated Recreational Water – United States, 2000-2014. (MMWR May 18, 2018/67(19);
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