Published Articles & Thought Leadership

This article provides the first comprehensive framework for calculating damages in water contamination litigation based on Maximum Contaminant Level Goals, the health-based standards established by EPA. The article addresses a critical gap in environmental law: while courts recognize that water providers can suffer compensable injury from contamination below regulatory limits, no coherent methodology exists for measuring those damages. The article is particularly timely given the historic $13 billion PFAS class action settlement, which implicitly adopted MCLG-based damages by compensating water systems for any detectable contamination. Hopkins, Timothy J., "MCLGs in Water Contamination Litigation: Why Health-Based Standards Matter," 56 ELR 10037 (Jan/Feb 2026).

This article demonstrates how investor-owned water utilities can achieve health-protective drinking water standards (MCLGs) while maximizing shareholder returns through rate-of-return regulation. By treating to MCLGs rather than minimum regulatory compliance (MCLs), utilities increase rate base, enhance long-term profitability, and deliver superior public health outcomes. The article challenges the conventional assumption that utilities lack economic incentive to exceed minimum standards, showing how regulatory economics can align private profit with public health. Hopkins, Timothy J., "A New Path to Achieving Health-Based Drinking Water Standards," 56 ELR 10105 (Mar/Apr 2026).

This article addresses the question every public water system now faces under EPA's Lead and Copper Rule Improvements (LCRI): once all lead service lines must be replaced, who pays for the privately owned portion? The maximum contaminant level goal (MCLG) for lead is zero, which means the only answer is elimination - not treatment or filtration. The LCRI's preamble encourages water systems to absorb the private-side replacement costs into general water rates, an approach likely to generate ratepayer opposition, litigation, and political pressure for rollback. This article develops the surcharge-lien system as the better answer: the water system advances the replacement cost, attaches a lien to the property whose line was replaced, and recovers the expenditure through property tax enforcement laws. Using New York as the most fully developed example, it provides an analytical template for practitioners in every state. Hopkins, Timothy J., "Who Pays for the Lead Service Line?", 56 ELR ___ (Jul/Aug 2026). Link

Environmental Law Reporter (ELR) is the leading scholarly journal for environmental law professionals, published by the Environmental Law Institute. ELR articles are widely cited by courts, practitioners, and scholars.