Managing Partner Matt Edling authored the Trends and Developments section of Chambers & Partners Global Practice Guide for Environmental Law in the United States. A brief excerpt follows below, and the full article can be read here.
State of Play: Forever Chemicals and Drinking Water
“When toxic chemicals contaminate drinking water supplies, public water providers are the first line of defence. They are responsible for delivering drinking water to their communities that meets all state and federal standards established to protect human health and the environment from the range of threats posed by those contaminants. Sometimes, they must move faster than the regulators in order to remove or reduce emerging contaminants that have not yet been regulated.
The financial burdens associated with providing that first line of defence are substantial, and many public entities turn to the courts to hold accountable the corporations whose past conduct can be tied to the contamination. This overview looks at two types of contaminants, PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, some of the cases that have been brought to address them, and a few regulatory developments at the federal level.”
The article includes the following chapters:
- The persistence of PFAS, and PFAS litigation
- The emergence of 1,4-dioxane, and 1,4-dioxane litigation
- Regulatory developments to watch
All these regulatory developments are evolving rapidly and will likely impact the way litigators navigate the complexities of forever chemicals and drinking water in the days ahead.
-Matt Edling
