The Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) must evaluate the environmental impacts of construction and operation of a privately financed magnesium plant in its NEPA impact statement for an electrical supply contract for the plant and construction of a transmission line to it. The Supreme Court's opin...
The D.C. Circuit partially affirms and partially reverses the lower court in a suit challenging Federal Highway Administration regulations concerning public hearings on federal-aid highway projects. In affirmance, the court holds, in a matter of first impression, that procedural regulations governin...
The Army Corps of Engineers failed to comply with the requirements of NEPA in connection with its issuance of a permit for construction of a power plant's cooling water discharge facility in navigable waters. The planned design includes erection of a concrete wall across a prime surfing site. The Co...
The court holds not guilty a yacht club charged under §403 of the Rivers and Harbors Act with illegally filling property which was flooded by abnormally high waters. The 66-acre parcel in question, adjacent to Lake St. Clair, had been separate from the lake until 1973, when peak flooding occurred a...
The court dismisses a claim that Georgia's Metropolitan River Protection Act is an unconstitutional taking of private property without just compensation as applied to construction of a tennis court. Plaintiff began constructing the tennis court within 150 feet of the Chattahoochee River in northwest...
A three-judge district court upholds the constitutionality of Montana's big game licensing procedures despite discrimination against nonresident hunters. Nonresident plaintiffs were required to pay a license fee 7.5 times greater than that of Montana residents in order to hunt elk in the state. Whil...
The court dismisses a complaint brought by owners of a shopping mall alleging that the Indiana State Highway Commission violated NEPA in connection with the long-planned construction of a highway bypass through the mall. The Commission planned to construct a 3.8-mile segment of the bypass, which con...
The Eighth Circuit affirms the lower court's ruling that Reserve Mining's taconite discharges into Lake Superior must cease on July 7, 1977, barring the parties' resolution of the on-land disposal site controversy. The court also affirms the lower court's assessment of fines, penalties, litigation c...
On its second decision in this Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) suit to compel disclosure of financial records filed with the National Park Service by concessioners, the D.C. Circuit upholds nondisclosure under the fourth exemption to the Act of records for five concessioners but reverses and reman...
Although continuing a temporary restraining order solely to allow tuna fisherman plaintiffs to apply for appellate relief, the court denies plaintiffs' motion for a preliminary injunction restraining defendants from enforcing a limitation on the number of marine mammals that may be taken incident to...