9th Circuit declines to intervene in BNSF lawsuit

MATT VOLZ, Press

HELENA — A federal appeals court declined a BNSF Railway Co. request to block a lawsuit filed by 152 Livingston residents who want the company to pay for the cleanup of toxic chemicals from a contaminated rail yard.

The city and residents said in the lawsuit that huge quantities of diesel fuel and solvents have seeped into the soil, surface water and groundwater.

BNSF had asked a federal judge to block the 2007 lawsuit filed in state district court, arguing the injunction was necessary to keep jurisdiction in federal court, where the Montana Department of Environmental Qu...