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The Georgia "Shield" and the Passive Receiver Trap
February 17th, 2026
Last week Georgia’s PFAS Receiver Shield Act faced a significant procedural reset in the House. The bill’s intent is to protect "receivers", ie. landfills, wastewater plants, and contractors who handle but don't manufacture PFAS—from being swept into the massive wave of litigation currently flooding U.S. courts. For contractors, this is a double-edged sword. While the bill seeks to limit liability for those complying with environmental rules, it underscores a terrifying reality: if you are excavating, transporting, or disposing of soil and materials containing PFAS, you are a "receiver". Under federal law, particularly CERCLA (Superfund), liability is strict, joint, and several. This means a contractor can be held responsible for the entire cost of a site cleanup simply for having moved contaminated dirt from point A to point B. The Insurance...
Texas Facilities Emit 1.6M Pounds of Pollutants During Freeze
February 3rd, 2026
When the temperature plummeted across Texas last week, business owners scrambled to keep lights on and pipes from bursting. But for the state’s industrial sector, the bitter cold brought a different kind of crisis—one that illustrates a terrifying reality for any business handling hazardous materials: you can follow every protocol and still face a catastrophic...
NY Firm’s Disposal Failure Serves as $2M Cautionary Tale
January 26th, 2026
In a stark reminder that environmental liability does not end when a waste hauler leaves the job site, a prominent New York-based construction and demolition firm is facing massive financial penalties following an investigation into illegal asbestos disposal....
Fatal Hydrogen Sulfide Release in Maine
February 11th, 2026
The chemical industry was served a somber reminder of its inherent risks on January 27, 2026, when a toxic release at the Woodland Pulp facility in Baileyville, Maine, claimed the life of an intern and sent nine others to the hospital. On February 9, the U.S. Chemical Safety and Hazard Investigation Board (CSB) officially opened its probe into the event....
How a New Federal Standard Could Remake the Remediation Market
January 21st, 2026
This week, the U.S. Senate introduced the Military Occupancy Living Defense (MOLD) Act, a sweeping piece of legislation designed to crack down on habitability issues in privatized...
New EPA Rule Narrows State Oversight of Water Permits
February 4th, 2026
A new rule proposed by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) could drastically change the way industrial projects obtain permits to discharge into U.S. waters. On Jan. 13 the Trump‑administration EPA announced that it would “return Clean Water...