The court remanded for modification an injunction imposed against a corporation for soil and groundwater contamination in Minneapolis, Minnesota. The injunction required the corporation to prevent the release of further contaminants into soil and groundwater; to test for migration and to remedy any ...

A California appellate court affirmed a lower court's denial of a petition for a writ of mandamus to reverse a public agency's sale of land to the Tuolumne Board of Me-Wuk Indians. The land contained a disused but historic railroad right-of-way. A community group argued that the transfer fell within...

The court denied mining industry groups' and mine operators' petitions for review of three Mine Safety and Health Administration (MSHA) rules regulating diesel particulate matter (DPM) in underground mines. The court rejected the petitioners' claim that the MSHA did not have sufficient evidence that...

A district court held that the Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) arbitrarily and capriciously denied petitions to list certain genetically engineered varieties of grasses as noxious weeds under the Plant Protection Act. APHIS' insistence that international obligations require that p...

The court held that a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) incidental take statement authorizing the taking of all northern spotted owls associated with certain proposed timber harvests in the Pacific Northwest is invalid. As a result of a prior court opinion, the FWS voluntarily reinitiated consult...

The court upheld a lower court decision dismissing an environmental service company's patent infringement suit against a hazardous waste remediation contractor. The contractor was hired by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to clean up a lead-contaminated parcel of land near Colonie, New York. The com...

A California appellate court reversed in part a lower court decision denying a neighborhood association's petition to set aside agreements between a city and developers to build a housing project in West Hollywood. Although the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) approved the developer...

A California appellate court upheld a lower court decision denying an environmental group's petition challenging a local board's approval of a development project in Monterey County. The group argued that by approving the project with a mitigated negative declaration (MND) in lieu of an environmenta...

The Eighth Circuit upheld the dismissal of residents' §1983 suit against county officials for selectively enforcing provisions of the county zoning ordinance against them in retaliation of the residents' public criticism of the county's lax enforcement of environmental and zoning regulations ag...

The court held that it lacked jurisdiction to hear environmental groups' claims against U.S. Customs, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-Fisheries for allowing threatened and endangered salmon to be imported from Canada into the United States ...