A California appellate court upheld a comprehensive municipal storm sewer permit governing 19 local public entities. A building association argued that water quality standards provisions in the permit require strict compliance with state water quality standards beyond what is "practicable" and there...
A California appellate court reversed a trial court decision and granted a neigborhood group's petition seeking the preparation of an environmental impact report (EIR) under the California Environmental Quality Act for a residential project. The trial court erred in ruling that the issues tendered b...
The U.S. Supreme Court adopted all of a Special Master's recommendations in a dispute between Colorado and Kansas concerning the division of waters in the upper Arkansas River. The Special Master's First Report found that Colorado unlawfully depleted the river in violation of the Arkansas River Comp...
A California appellate court held that environmental impact reports (EIRs) prepared for two retail shopping center projects violated the California Environmental Quality Act. The EIRs do not fulfill their informational obligations because they failed to consider the projects' individual and cumulati...
The Ninth Circuit upheld a district court decision staying a Nevada State Engineer's ruling granting the U.S. and the Pyramid Lake Paiute Tribe of Indians' applications to make temporary changes to two water rights set forth in the Orr Ditch Decree, a 1944 federal court decree quieting title to cert...
A California appellate court held that the statute of limitations governing the filing of a petition for administrative mandamus challenging a decision of the state's Board of Forestry and Fire Protection is found in California Public Resources Code §4601.3. Consequently, a petition for a writ ...
A California appellate court reversed a lower court's denial of a developer's petition to overturn an adverse decision by a local planning commission due to an unacceptable probability of actual bias on the part of one of the decisionmakers. While this matter was pending before the planning commissi...
A California appellate court held that a local airport commission's adopting of an airport land use compatibility plan was a "project" under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). Adoption of the plan was a project because it has the potential to result in physical change to the environmen...
A California appellate court held that maintenance work done on a levee to protect an island in the Delta in San Joaquin County from flooding was not a public works project subject to the prevailing wage laws. The work did not involve the operational work of a reclamation district, nor is there any ...
The Fifth Circuit held that a local ordinance that prevents a corporation that owns state-granted mineral interests under and around a lake from drilling within 1,000 feet of that lake is preempted by Louisiana's comprehensive regulation of oil and gas drilling. The ordinance, therefore, is invalid ...