The Oregon Supreme Court upheld the Department of Environmental Quality's issuance of a permit for the discharge of certain pollutants resulting from suction dredge mining. A mining association argued that because suction dredge mining did not add anything to navigable waters that was not already th...

A state appellate court reversed a judgment upholding the Colorado Mined Land Reclamation Board's order granting a uranium mining company's request for approval of a second period of temporary cessation. Environmental groups argued the lower court erred in affirming the Board's order because the ord...

A district court vacated the the U.S. Forest Service's approval of an open-pit copper mining operation in the Coronado National Forest that included the dumping of approximately 1.9 billion tons of mine waste across over 2,000 acres of the forest. Environmental groups and tribes argued the Service m...

A state high court reversed a summary judgment for a natural gas producer in a challenge to the interpretation of leases it entered into with North Dakota. Before the lower court, the producer challenged the North Dakota Department of Trust Lands' conclusion that the producer had improperly calculat...

A state appellate court held invalid the Department of Ecology's administrative rule establishing summer minimum instream flows for the lower reach of the Spokane River. Environmental groups challenged the validity of the rule, arguing that it exceeded the Department's authority under the Water Reso...