Soil or groundwater cleanups can take a long time. When one person conducts the cleanup and another has an interest in its completion, the two can disagree over the pace of the project. That is typically a three-party issue involving the regulator—for example, the Environmental Protection Agency or the Department of Environmental Protection. Resolving the dispute by litigation poses challenges. Last month, the Commonwealth Court offered some guidance on some of those challenges in Delaware Riverkeeper Network v. Department of Environmental Protection, No. 525 M.D. 2017 (Pa. Commw. Ct. July 25, 2018), permitting citizen suit claims against the DEP to obtain a faster cleanup and a direct claim under the Environmental Rights Amendment.

In Pennsylvania, one has an obligation to clean up soil and groundwater contamination on one’s land or for which one is otherwise responsible under a number of legal authorities. We often write in these columns about the Superfund programs under the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation, and Liability Act or the Pennsylvania Hazardous Sites Cleanup Act and the Land Recycling Program under “Act 2,” the Pennsylvania Land Recycling and Environmental Remediation Standards Act. However, the Clean Streams Law imposes a more general obligation to address conditions on land that can cause surface water or groundwater pollution, and other programs also can require cleanup in specific situations.