Environmental Law – Statute of Limitations

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Where the current owner of property that once was owned by a railway company seeks to recover from the railway company additional remediation costs that the owner incurred when the Minnesota Pollution Control Agency raised its standards regarding lead in soil and required the owner to perform a more stringent remediation than the railway company had previously performed, the District Court concludes that the owner’s claims under the Minnesota Environmental Rights and Liability Act are not time-barred because the owner incurred response costs in 2003, 2005, and 2006 as a result of the MPCA’s new mandated soil lead level of 700 ppm, and these response costs were incurred within six years before the complaint was filed.

The owner’s claims of nuisance, trespass, waste and violations of the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act, however, are time-barred where the claims fall under the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act discovery rules in 42 U.S.C. sec. 9685; and the owner knew of the contamination well before it property purchase, which was more than six years prior to filing its complaint.

08-CV-6385 Minnesota ex rel. Northern Pacific Center, Inc. v. BNSF Railway Co. (D. Minn., Rosenbaum, J.)