Washington District Court Reversal on MTCA Liability for Smokestack Emissions
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 A court in the Eastern District of Washington recently reversed its prior decision concluding that the deposition of aeri...
Tuesday, January 31, 2023 A court in the Eastern District of Washington recently reversed its prior decision concluding that the deposition of aerial emissions from a smokestack in Canada could support a claim for arranger liability under Washington's cleanup statute, the Model Toxics Control Act (MTCA). The court previously held that under MTCA, '[t]he ordinary meaning of ‘disposal' does not preclude [disposal by aerial emissions], and crucially, MTCA expressly contemplates cleanup sites created by aerial contamination,' despite a 2016 Ninth Circuit decision in the same matter that denied arranger liability under CERCLA based on aerial emissions for the same facility.