A statute which delegated to the Water Resources Commission (WRC) the authority to regulate the erection of structures "in navigable waters" so as to control pollution and protect the recreational potential of these waters authorizes the WRC to permit construction of a high voltage electricity trans...

Congress, in placing the responsibility for preparation of environmental impact statements upon the agency proposing the action, has required that the agency make a good-faith effort to comply with NEPA. Agencies may meet that good-faith standard even if their employees personally are "anti-environm...

Where plaintiff, a lower riparian owner, has alleged injury to rights of navigation and anchorage caused by the various defendants' dumping of refuse without permit into the waters of the Mississippi River, the district court is vested with jurisdiction under the Refuse Act.
Counsel for Harold Hawk...

The state of New York's zoning enabling legislation permits the town of Ramapo to amend its Zoning Ordinance to insure phased growth. The legitimate zoning purposes of the amendments, which delay development of property in some areas for up to 18 years depending on the availability of municipal faci...

A federal statute which limits the liability of a shipowner for the acts of his ship to the value of his interest in the vessel bars full recovery by the state under a state statute for damages resulting from an oil spill in Baltimore Harbor. The damages suffered by private individuals—including c...

Plaintiffs, owning land near a public water authority's proposed site for the erection of storage tanks and the drilling of artesian wells, state a cause of action under Article 1, Section 27 of the Constitution of Pennsylvania (an "Environmental Bill of Rights") only in that they allege that the wa...

The county of Freeborn will not be enjoined from condemning privately owned marshland for use as highway right-of-way in a suit brought under the Minnesota Environmental Rights Act of 1971. The statute's prohibition of "any conduct which materially adversely affects . . . the environment,"...

Because the construction of a 527,000-kilowatt electric generating plant by three public utilities will include creation of an artificial cooling pond connected to the navigable Wisconsin River, Wisconsin Statute §30.12 makes work on that project without a Department of Natural Resources permit unl...

The operation of limestone quarries in the Colorado Rocky Mountains in such a way as to create shock waves annoying to nearby residents, to raise large quantities of dust, and to do considerable aesthetic damage to those mountains is a public and a private nuisance. Such operation is enjoined regard...

An injunction restraining construction of an earth embankment dam across the Cossatot River in Arkansas is dissolved upon the filing of an environmental impact statement by the Corps of Engineers. The injunction is based on five separate memorandum opinions reported together at 1 ELR 20130. Although...