The operation of a rendering plant which emits noxious odors and stream-polluting wastes interferes with the use and enjoyment of nearby private property and therefore constitutes a private nuisance, actionable by private-property owners and others who can show injury to their private rights. That d...

The United States brought this action in 1949 to quiet its title to waters impounded by the Colorado-Big Thompson Project and to establish its obligations under a Congressional mandate requiring provision of adequate irrigation for lands adversely affected by the Project. Yust and other landowners i...

Riparian owners may not obstruct access to, and use of, a river that the lower court properly found to be navigable because it was suitable for recreational boating. The bridge, fences, and other obstructions constitute a public nuisance and the lower court's order requiring their removal is affirme...

Plaintiffs' motion granted for preliminary injunction preventing defendants from proceeding with the lease of approximately 80 tracts on the Outer Continental Shelf off eastern Louisiana for purposes of oil exploration. The Interior Department's final impact statement failed to mention certain alter...

Appealing from a district court's issuance of a preliminary injunction halting bids for leases for oil and gas on the outer continental shelf lands off Louisiana, the government filed a motion for summary reversal. The court of appeals held that the discussion of the effects of alternative courses o...

In a quiet title action, the owner of tidelands (i.e., lands lying between the mean high and low tide) under an 1874 patent from the state, sought a declaration that he had a right to fill and develop the tidelands, even though a portion of those lands were in front of the defendant's property facin...

New Jersey statute authorizing New Jersey Sports and Exposition Authority to use state-owned tidelands in the Hackensack Meadowlands as the site for a sports complex does not violate the public trust in these lands and is not inconsistent with the provisions of New Jersey law that dedicate state-own...

Construction and further development of a federally assisted highway is preliminarily enjoined in a suit alleging the Secretary of Transportation's noncompliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). Defendants' motion to suspend the preliminary injunction is denied because it appears t...

For the opinion of the Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia (dated January 13, 1972), see 2 ELR 20029. On remand, the District Court holds that the document styled "Addendum to the Final Environmental Impact Statement" filed by the Department of the Interior on January 17, 1972, does not co...

A state statute that attempts to prevent the pollution of the state's territorial waters by the shipping industry violates Article III, Section 2 of the United States Constitution because that statute would change substantive maritime law. Both state statute and the federal Water Pollution Control A...