Cascadia Wildlands v. Kitzhaber
A district court granted an environmental group's motion to preliminarily enjoin the logging of 11 timber sales and to halt any further logging activities in known occupied marbled murrelet sites in Oregon's Tillamook, Clatsop, and Elliot state forests. Defendants argued that the case was moot becau...
Habitat & Watershed Caretakers v. City of Santa Cruz
A California appellate court reversed a lower court decision denying a petition challenging a city's certification of a final environmental impact report (EIR) for a project to amend the city's "sphere of influence" to include an undeveloped portion of a university campus in order to allow the city ...
Western Watersheds Project v. Salazar
A district court held that DOI complied with NEPA, the ESA, and FLPMA when it approved the construction of a large solar power plant in California's Mojave Desert. Environmental groups filed suit, alleging that BLM and FWS inadequately considered the project's effect on existing populations of deser...
Teel v. Chesapeake Appalachia, LLC
A district court dismissed a landowner's trespass claim against an energy company for waste stemming from natural gas drilling operations on the property. The company owns the mineral rights underlying the land. As part of its drilling operations, the company deposited drilling waste and other mater...
Tuolumne Jobs & Small Business Alliance v. Superior Court of Tuolumne County
A California appellate court held that a city council may not skip California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) review for a development project by using Election Code §9214(a) to approve the project via a voter petition instead of holding an election under §9214(b). When a development project is a...