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…

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…

Together with dozens of organizations and thousands of coastal communities and businesses, Earthjustice has been fighting for years to stop fossil fuel companies from blasting seismic air guns in the Atlantic Ocean, including in crucial underwater habitat for one of the world’s most endangered large whale species. These air guns produce a noise louder than…

Community advocacy and environmental organizations, represented by Earthjustice, successfully sued the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 2019 for failing to establish protective lead hazard standards for older housing and child-occupied facilities like schools and daycares. The EPA’s definition, which was set in 1992, was more than 55 times less protective than the definition used by…

The Back Forty project is an open-pit mine and minerals-processing facility proposed by Aquila Resources, Inc. The proposed mine pit is no more than 50 yards from the Menominee River, which flows into Green Bay in Lake Michigan. The pit would span 84 acres and be 750 feet deep under current plans, stretching far beneath…

Eleven community, scientist, environmental, and environmental justice groups, represented by Earthjustice, sued the Environmental Protection Agency over a weak national emission rule for hundreds of chemical facilities whose pollution is linked to cancer. The Miscellaneous Organic Chemical Manufacturing (MON) rule regulates toxic emissions for about 200 chemical plants across the country. These plants emit over…

In 2010, the BP Deepwater Horizon oil spill caused the death or serious harm to billions, if not trillions, of fish, sea turtles, whales, and other animals, including more than 100,000 individuals of species listed as threatened or endangered, according to scientists’ estimates. The National Marine Fisheries Service is required under the Endangered Species Act…

A coalition of rainforest defenders, represented by Earthjustice, successfully halted a massive commercial timber sale on Prince of Wales Island in Alaska’s Tongass National Forest. The U.S. Forest Service had green-lighted a sweeping 15-year logging scheme over a 1.8-million-acre project area across Prince of Wales and surrounding islands, part of a program dubbed the Prince…

On behalf of conservation groups, scientists, doctors, and public-health experts, Earthjustice filed a legal brief with Mexico’s Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation supporting constitutional claims raised by Mayan children who oppose approval and operation of an industrial animal operation in the Yucatán Peninsula. The lawsuit challenged a decision by Mexican authorities to permit…

The explosion risk of transporting volatile liquefied natural gas in vulnerable tank cars through major population centers is off the charts. If it escapes containment, liquefied natural gas rapidly expands by 600 times its volume to become a highly flammable gas — and can turn into a “bomb train.” In one of the worst examples…