The plants that make industrial wood pellets harm people and the environment — with low-income, rural communities disproportionately affected.

The Lead and Copper Rule Improvements rule requires the proactive replacement of most lead service lines nationwide within the next 10 years, improves sampling methods to more accurately measure lead levels, and will force more water systems to take immediate action to address lead contamination.

The future of the Good Neighbor Plan hangs in the balance, with implications for public health and economic prosperity nationwide.

The Taku, Stikine, and Unuk rivers flow across the Canada-United States border, from headwaters in the Coast Mountains of British Columbia through Southeast Alaska to the sea. These watersheds are some of the largest and most productive salmon habitats remaining in the world. Alaska Native and First Nations peoples have harvested salmon and caribou from…

Working with four nonprofit environmental organizations — Puget Soundkeeper Alliance, RE Sources, Toxic-Free Future, and Waste Action Project — Earthjustice is advocating for more stringent pollution controls for the wastewater treatment plant to help protect salmon, orcas, and people.

Proposed by the Alaska Gasline Development Corporation (AGDC), an Alaska state-owned corporation, the $38.7 billion fossil-fuel infrastructure project to export liquified methane gas involves constructing an 807-mile pipeline that would bisect the state from north to south, spanning a distance roughly the width of Texas. Construction would affect 35,474 acres of land, 45% of which…

Despite vocal opposition from concerned neighbors and environmental and health advocates, the City of Tacoma approved a land use permit for a mega-warehouse project in April 2023, without requiring an Environmental Impact Statement to examine the project’s environmental, health, and community impacts. The South Tacoma location of the mega-warehouse poses serious environmental justice concerns. The…

Line 5 is a 645-mile pipeline operated by Enbridge Energy that transports crude oil and natural gas liquids from Superior, Wisconsin to Sarnia, Ontario. The 69-year-old pipeline has ruptured at least 30 times in the past 50 years, releasing more than 1 million gallons of oil. The Great Lakes are the lifeblood of Tribal Nations across…

In the fall of 2021, Michigan’s environmental agency (EGLE) authorized the Ajax corporation to build a toxic hot-mix asphalt plant near Flint. Close to 3,000 people live within a one-mile radius of the plant site, in a low-income area already overburdened with industrial polluters. The asphalt plant will release harmful chemicals like sulfur dioxide and…

In 2021, the U.S. District Court for the District of Arizona said Trump’s Navigable Waters Protection Rule must be vacated because the rule contains serious errors and has the potential to cause significant harm to the nation’s waters if left in place while the Biden administration works on revisions to the rule. The court ruling…

14 young people filed a constitutional climate lawsuit against the Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation (HDOT); HDOT Director Jade Butay; Governor David Ige; and the State of Hawaiʻi. In Navahine F. v. Hawaiʻi Department of Transportation, the youth plaintiffs claim that their state DOT’s active operation of a transportation system that results in high levels of greenhouse…

Represented by Earthjustice, six Tribes filed a lawsuit in the Western District of Wisconsin against the state for its planned November 2021 wolf hunt, claiming the proposed hunt violates the Tribes’ treaty rights. Wisconsin’s Natural Resource Board approved a quota of 300 wolves for the upcoming November hunt, more than double the quota of 130…

The community group Centreville Citizens for Change (represented by Earthjustice) and more than two dozen residents (represented by Equity Legal Services and the Metropolitan St. Louis Equal Housing and Opportunity Council) sued Commonfields of Cahokia Public Water District and the City of Cahokia Heights in federal court, in response to years of raw sewage pollution…

A consortium of Tribal governments from the Kuskokwim region, represented by Earthjustice, are fighting Donlin Gold, a mining project owned by Canadian-based mining giants NovaGold and Barrick Gold. If it is constructed, the proposed Donlin Gold mine will be one of the world’s largest open-pit mines. Located 10 miles north of the village of Crooked…

Community and environmental groups in Puerto Rico have developed a compelling vision of what a clean, affordable, and resilient grid looks like in Puerto Rico — a plan that combines solar, wind, and wave energy, alongside energy efficiency efforts, demand response programs, and battery storage systems. With that mix, Puerto Rico could not only fulfill…

In a series of legal actions, Earthjustice has sought information — including environmental reviews of sites and analysis of the health and safety impacts on those in detention — on multiple migrant detention facilities to ensure the health of those in custody. Freedom of Information Act requests have revealed details of multiple proposed migrant detention…

A coalition of clean water advocates represented by Earthjustice — Buckeye Environmental Network, Concerned Ohio River Residents, Freshwater Accountability Project, Ohio Valley Environmental Coalition and the Sierra Club — successfully sued the Ohio Department of Natural Resources for issuing permits to build three solution mining wells without public notice or comment or preparing a draft…

Represented by Earthjustice, the Tonawanda Seneca Nation petitioned the New York State Supreme Court to stop the development of a manufacturing megasite adjacent to the Nation’s land in Genesee County. The Big Woods are an important area for hunting, fishing, and gathering traditional medicine used by the Haudenosaunee (Six Nations Iroquois Confederacy), of which the…