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Too Much Manure,
Too Little Space.
Animal farming in the United States has changed dramatically over the last several decades. Where livestock (e.g., chickens, hogs and cows) were once raised on tens of thousands of small farms that dotted the landscape, now increasingly there are industrial-sized operations, which can confine thousands, if not millions, of animals within a small area. For example, in the last 15 years, the number of hog farms has dropped from 600,000 to 157,000, even though the number of hogs raised remained the same. The animal waste, or manure, produced by these factory farms can be truly staggering. In 2003, factory farms produced an estimated 500 million tons of manure-three times the amount of waste produced by the entire United States' human population. Disposal of this waste can and has created serious health and environmental problems and the cost of fixing these problems can run into the tens, if not hundreds, of millions of dollars. This article briefly describes the significant issues and concerns associated with concentrated animal feeding operations.
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Johnson Wright, Inc.
3687 Mt. Diablo Blvd.,
Suite 330
Lafayette, CA 94549
(925) 403-6200 | |
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Greetings!
Johnson Wright, Inc. is please to introduce the first edition of our quarterly newsletter. This publication features informative articles from several Johnson Wright staff. We anticipate that this publication will provide interesting insights and useful information on a variety of contemporary environmental issues, while keeping Johnson Wright in touch with our clients and friends.
Please feel free to forward this email to others you think may find it of interest, or should you wish to not receive future issues of our newsletter, please follow the link below to unsubscribe.
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Natural Resource Damages - What's Interim Loss and What's it Worth?
Natural resource damages (NRD) can be a result of man's industrial intrusion into the natural environment. Injuries to natural habitats can result from activities, such as oil spills and hazardous substance releases. Under federal and state laws, responsible parties are required to "remediate" the contamination. However, in the meantime the services provided by the habitat (e.g., supporting wildlife or recreational fishing) are disrupted until the habitat has recovered to predisturbance, or baseline, conditions. This article briefly describes one of the interesting and less intuitive aspects of NRD claims and the unique methodology for valuation being utilized by trustees.
Under federal and state laws, natural resource trustees, who include federal and state agencies and Indian tribes, can seek compensation for NRD, including both the cost of resource restoration as well as compensation for lost services. While calculating a restoration cost is reasonably straight-forward, determing the cost of interim losses is often harder to define.
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Do You have the Right Data?
Asbestos Operations vs. Completed Operations
In asbestos claims, getting your facts straight can make all the difference between having aggregated or unaggregated coverage. Many pre-1986 CGL policies contained an aggregate limit for coverage for bodily injury or property damage within the products or completed operations hazards, but not for other bodily injury or property damage (such as operations or premises injury). Thus, for companies handling asbestos-containing products, such as insulation installers, and their insurance companies, a key question is whether a claim is for injury within the products or completed operations hazard, as policy aggregates may apply only to the extent the claim is for such injury. This question is addressed by the 2004 Wallace & Gale decision from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit. That decision held that when a claim is for bodily injury that began during the insured's operation and continued after that operation was complete, payment under general liability policies for the injury that occurred before the operation was complete is not subject to aggregate limits, but payment for the post-completed operations injury is subject to the completed operations aggregate. Although the determination of available insurance coverage for asbestos bodily injury claims depends on a number of coverage issues, such as allocation methodology, trigger period, and number of occurrences, the Wallace & Gale decision will have a significant impact on insurance coverage for many asbestos litigation defendants. This article describes some of the variables and issues necessary for proper categorization of operation and completed operations claims.
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