Home | Business News | Browse by Publication | T | Trial

Rising tide of citizen action suits takes on water polluters.

Article Excerpt
In May, six residents of the small fishing village of Kivalina, Alaska, settled a lawsuit with Teck Cominco, a mining company based in Vancouver, Canada. The lawsuit alleged that Teck Cominco's Red Dog Mine, one of the country's biggest zinc mines, violated the Clean Water Act by dumping illegal amounts of waste into the Wulik River, which the villagers used for drinking water and subsistence fishing. (Adams v. Teck Cominco Alaska, Inc., No. 3:04-CV-00049-JWS (D. Alaska settled May 14, 2008).)

Citizen lawsuits against polluters are not new, but they are rising in number along with the growing awareness of environmental concerns. One reason is that when it comes to enforcing environmental laws, courts can sometimes do a better job than federal agencies.

"I realized this years ago, that the courts are well suited to addressing environmental concerns--often better than relying on the government or legislatures," said Scott Summy, a lawyer in Dallas who was co-lead counsel for the plaintiffs in one of the largest water-pollution settlements in history. In May, several large oil companies settled with plaintiffs who alleged that the companies were liable for leaking methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE), an octane enhancer and known toxic substance, into groundwater supplies. (In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether (MTBE) Prods. Liab. Litig., 175 F. Supp. 2d 593 (S.D.N.Y settled May 8, 2008).)

American corporations are bound by strict federal and state environmental laws, but these laws are only as good as their enforcement. And in some cases, lawyers and...

View this article FREE - Now for a Limited Time, try Goliath Business News
Free for 3 Days!