The Ninth Circuit held that the government complied with NEPA when it issued a FONSI in connection with the redevelopment of a 15-acre waterfront site owned by the U.S. Navy in downtown San Diego. The site serves as the home to several non-operational, administrative components of the U.S. Navy, and...

The Ninth Circuit denied a petition challenging the FAA's decision that no EIS was necessary to commence operating commercial passenger service at an industrial airport near Everett, Washington. The FAA prepared an EA, but chose not to prepare an EIS following its finding of no significant environme...

The Ninth Circuit upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to close to domestic sheep grazing approximately 70% of allotments on which grazing had been permitted in the Payette National Forest in Idaho. The Forest Service's decision was made in response to concerns about disease transmission to imm...

The Ninth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, upheld the U.S. Forest Service's decision to allow motorized vehicles on just 62 of 869 miles of user-created roads and trails in the Tahoe National Forest. To implement the 2005 Travel Management Rule in the Tahoe National Forest, the Forest Service pre...

The Eighth Circuit, in an unpublished opinion, upheld the dismissal of an individual's RCRA lawsuit against a city for using road salt to melt snow and ice on a street located within a flood plain. Because the road salt was released into the environment as an expected consequence of its intended use...

A district court dismissed a city's RCRA action against two power and gas companies concerning a methane gas leak from natural gas pipelines and waste oil contamination from a former manufacturing gas plant. Because methane gas does not meet the definition of "solid waste" under RCRA, the city canno...

A district court held that OSM violated NEPA when it approved a mining plan amendment that would expand a coal mine in Montana, and ordered the agency to prepare an updated EA within 240 days. Specifically, the court held that OSM violated NEPA's public participation and notice provisions when it fa...

A district court ordered NMFS to take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts of its definition of "fishery" with regard to the Atlantic Mackerel, Squid, and Butterfish fishery management plan (FMP) and whether river herring and shad should be included in the FMP. In 2014, the Mid-Atlantic Fisher...

A district court dismissed homeowners' CERCLA, RCRA, and state-law claims against the former owners and operators of a manufacturing plant for alleged well-water contamination. The court dismissed the CERCLA claims because the homeowners failed to allege that they incurred any recoverable response c...

A district court, in a 126-page opinion, dismissed environmental groups' NEPA lawsuit against the Alabama Department of Transportation, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, and the Federal Highway Administration in connection with a proposed six-lane, 50-mile highway project north of Birmingham, Alabam...