A Long Island water district's attempt to hold aerospace and defense manufacturer Northrop Grumman accountable for legacy pollution affecting local water supplies failed before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit, after a panel Friday upheld a lower court's order for summary judgment because the claims were time-barred under New York State law.

Underground pollution caused by the company at a facility in Bethpage has long been an issue, going back to the 1980s. Despite remedial efforts put in place through agreements with the federal government, new pollution problems were discovered at the site beginning in 2007. The threatened water supplies needed significant new treatment, requiring the town of Oyster Bay to authorize the issuance of a $13.95 million bond in 2010.

The water district sued Northrop Grumman in U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York in November 2013, alleging negligence, trespass, and nuisance while seeking to recover the costs of remediation for the most recent cleanup. U.S. District Judge Sandra Feuerstein approved a magistrate's recommendation that the court grant the company's summary judgment because the three-year statute of limitations had passed by the time the water district sued.

On appeal, the panel of Circuit Judges Denny Chin and Christopher Droney, with Judge Jane Restani of the Court of International Trade, sitting by designation, upheld the dismissal.

The panel noted that it had handled similar claims in its In re Methyl Tertiary Butyl Ether Products Liability Litigation decision in 2009, which saw New York City sue Exxon Mobil Corp. over chemicals seeping into its water supply in Queens.

In that decision, the panel noted, it found that the statute of limitations began to run only when a reasonable water provider would have treated the contaminated groundwater, rejecting the idea that simply knowing of a future need should trigger limitations. The mere presence of contamination also was not enough to set off the trigger, it noted.

In this case, the panel said, the facts showed the water board suffered, was aware of, and took actions to resolve its injury, before November 2010, the earliest it could have known to have still been within the statute of limitations. Even on one of its claims regarding radium contamination, when the time-barring statute could have provided for a one-year extension to a five-year limit, a seven-year gap between discovery of the injury and its source meant the discrete claim was still time-barred.

Weitz & Luxenberg appellate litigation unit director Alani Golanski represented the Bethpage Water District on appeal. The district directed requests for comment to Golanksi, who did not respond to a request for one.

Sive, Paget & Riesel principal Mark Chertok led the Northrop Grumman legal team on appeal. He directed requests for comment to a company spokesman, who did not immediately respond.