The Eleventh Circuit upheld a restaurant manager's conviction for conspiring to illegally dump restaurant grease into U.S. waters in violation of the CWA. The evidence was easily sufficient to sustain a finding that he conspired to intentionally violate the CWA. He was the supervisor of four res...

The Fifth Circuit reversed and remanded a lower court decision dismissing an environmental group's CWA action against a city for violations at its wastewater treatment plants. The lower court erred in ruling that a 2002 consent decree between the city and the U.S. government requiring the city t...

The Eleventh Circuit upheld FWS' denial of petitions to designate critical habitat for the Florida panther under the ESA. Environmental groups claimed that the denial of their petitions was arbitrary and capricious under the APA. But neither the ESA nor the regulations cited by the groups provid...

The Federal Circuit reversed in part a lower court's award of damages in favor of an energy company in a case involving the government's breach of its commitment to dispose of spent nuclear fuel. The court reversed the award of damages relating to the costs of operating a spent fuel pool after t...

A California appellate court upheld a county board's adoption of a zoning ordinance pertaining to lot line adjustments. The ordinance continued the county's existing administrative practice of allowing lot line adjustments impacting four or fewer parcels to readjust lots included in a prior applicat...

A district court held that a property owner is not entitled to attorney fees from the U.S. government in an underlying case in which the government was found liable under RCRA for trichloroethylene contamination at the site. The lower court held that the U.S. Army, Navy, and Air Force were liable as...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court decision denying agricultural water users' claim that an irrigation district violated the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) when it adopted regulations for the distribution of water in the event of an actual or potential water shortag...

A New Jersey appellate court held that two defendants in a state environmental cleanup suit may seek contribution from numerous third parties under the New Jersey Spill Compensation and Control Act. The state's environmental agency filed environmental cleanup suits against nine business entities...

The Fourth Circuit held that the Federal Highway Administration and the North Carolina Department of Transportation violated NEPA when they approved the construction of a 20-mile toll road. In calculating the "no-build" baseline as part of their alternatives analysis, the agencies relied on data...

The Fifth Circuit held that the CWA does not provide citizens the right to sue to enforce the conditions of §404 permits. Environmental groups filed a citizen suit against the Atchafalaya Basin Program, alleging that it violated its dredge and fill permit for Bayou Postillion in Iberia Parish, ...