The Supreme Court of California reverses a lower court's grant of summary judgment for plaintiffs in a suit by billboard owners challenging the constitutionality of a municipal ordinance with bans all off-site billboards and requires that existing billboards be removed after an amortization period. ...

The Ninth Circuit affirms an injunction against further bulldozing and blasting by locators of unpatented mining claims on national forest lands, on the ground that such activities are not "reasonably" related to prospecting or mining within the meaning of the Surface Resources Act (SRA). In additio...

The Supreme Court of Texas rejects plaintiff-respondents' claim for damages according to the traditional rule that a landowner has the right to withdraw groundwater without incurring liability for subsidence damage to neighboring lands absent willful waste or malicious injury. The court adds, howeve...

The Supreme Court of Oregon, holding that the public trustdoctrine does not prohibit all non-water related estuarine landfills and thus does not bar issuance of a permit to fill 32 acres of an estuary for a municipal airport runway extension, nevertheless affirms the lower court's reversal of the pe...

The court denies petitioner's challenge to the terms of a national pollution discharge elimination system (NPDES) permit issued it by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Petitioner alleged that the permit for its Norco refinery gave insufficient allowance for effluents from its olefins produc...

Denying plaintiffs' and defendants' cross-motions for summary judgment in a suit seeking declaratory and injunctive relief with respect to the proposed extension of Dort Highway near Flint, Michigan, the court finds that the federal defendants have violated their duties under the National Environmen...

The court vacates an injunction against completion of an urban renewal project, finding that defendants have brought their conduct into compliance with the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). In a previous decision, 8 ELR 20727, the court ruled that defendants had violated ...

The Ninth Circuit affirms a district court's dismissal of a complaint seeking declaratory and injunctive relief against the proposed construction of a high-tower electric transmission line adjacent to appellants' property. The court finds that since appellants concede that the respondent utility's a...

In another challenge to the construction of the Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway, which is now 29 percent completed, the court grants judgment for defendants and upholds design changes made by the Corps of Engineers. The challenge to widening the waterway to 300 feet is barred by laches because the suit...

In a previous decision, 9 ELR 20011, the court declined to issue a preliminary injunction against construction of an apartment complex in West Berlin because plaintiffs failed to present a substantial case on the merits that the requirements of the National Environmental Policy Act have been violate...