Plaintiff Minnesota Public Interest Research Group (MPIRG) seeks and obtains a permanent injunction against logging activities in or contiguous to virgin forest areas of the Boundary Waters Canoe Area (BWCA), part of the National Wilderness Preservation System, until the Forest Service prepares a ne...
The District of Columbia Board of Zoning Adjustment erred in granting a special exception allowing the construction of a private tennis club on open space in a district zoned for single-family detached dwellings, and is reversed. The scope of judicial review of zoning adjustments is limited to wheth...
Plaintiffs' action to enjoin an alleged public nuisance created by a power plant's air pollution is dismissed because the New Mexico Environmental Improvement Agency has primary jurisdiction over plaintiffs' claims. The court declines to interfere with agency functions, because it is not convinced t...
Presentation of evidence insufficient to prove estoppel or laches as a defense to a violation of the Rivers and Harbors Act of 1899 may still be relevant in determining the character of equitable relief. The defendant violated the Act when he constructed a causeway over a marsh adjacent to a navigab...
The city of Los Angeles is required by the California Environmental Quality Act to file an Environmental Impact Report on its expanded groundwater extraction program in Owens Valley. Although the city has been removing water from the valley since 1913 and had constructed a second aqueduct prior to t...
The Atomic Energy Commission must file a programmatic environmental impact statement assessing the cumulative effects of the overall Liquid Metal Fast Breeder Reactor program separate from statements evaluating individual test projects. The National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 was intended to r...
A three-judge federal court grants a temporary restraining order enjoining the ICC and the railroads from enforcing an increased permanent freight rate on goods shipped by rail for the purposes of recycling. The court finds sufficient likelihood that plaintiffs will prevail on the merits, that irrep...
An environmental group is sufficiently aggrieved by the temporary rate increase allowed by the ICC on the rail shipment of recycled goods to have standing, but the district court lacks the power to interfere with the Commission's discretionary decision or to suspend the rate increase itself. The all...
A state-funded inner city expressway does not become a federal project for NEPA purposes solely because state officials have failed to foreclose their option to acquire federal funding in the future, or because a connecting highway is federally funded. This is true despite the state highway commissi...
The state of Maine may bring suit in its parens patriae capacity to recover damages resulting from the discharge of oil into Casco Bay. The state has an independent interest in the quality of her coastal waters sufficient to justify a parens patriae suit. See Hawaii v. Standard Oil of California, 2 ...