Justia Environmental Law Opinion Summaries

Plaintiffs filed suit against the County Defendants in 2008, alleging that the County Defendants were discharging polluted stormwater in violation of the terms of their National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) permit, issued pursuant to the Federal Water Pollution Control Act (the Clean Water Act), 33 U.S.C.1251 et seq. The court held in 2013 that as a matter of law, the County Defendants had violated their permit. In 2012, during the pendency of appellate proceedings, the County Defendants sought and received a new NPDES permit from the Los Angeles Regional Water Quality Control Board (the Regional Board), which now governs the County Defendants’ stormwater discharges. In January 2015, the County Defendants filed a motion to dismiss plaintiffs’ entire lawsuit on mootness grounds, arguing that the 2012 Permit supplanted the 2001 Permit and therefore relief was not available to plaintiffs. Plaintiffs filed an interlocutory appeal from the district court's dismissal of their claims for injunctive relief. The court held that it has jurisdiction over the appeal under 28 U.S.C. 1292(a)(1). The court also held that plaintiffs' injunctive claims are not moot because the County Defendants are still subject to receiving water limitations, which are substantially the same as the limitations in the 2001 Permit. The County Defendants have not met their burden of making it “absolutely clear” that no violation will recur in the future. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment. View "NRDC V. County of Los Angeles" on Justia Law

The Company purchased the assets of Johnson Oyster and assumed the operation of a 1,060-acre mariculture facility at Drakes Estero estuarial bays in Point Reyes National Seashore. The site is owned by the federal government and within the California Coastal Commission’s permitting jurisdiction. The 40-year lease with the federal government expired in 2012. The government did not renew the agreement. The Company unsuccessfully challenged that decision in court. The operation had issues with the Commission relating to unpermitted development that began before and continued after the Company took over. Eventually, the Commission issued a consent order in which the Company agreed to stop certain development. The parties continued to have unresolved issues concerning unpermitted development and restoration. In 2013, the Company filed suit, alleging the Commission had infringed on the jurisdiction of the State’s Department of Fish and Wildlife and violated the Coastal Act, the Company’s due process rights, and the California Environmental Quality Act. The Commission sought injunctive relief and civil penalties against the Company. The court denied the Commission’s motion for a preliminary injunction and to disqualify certain Commission staff members from participating in the litigation and from communicating confidentially with the Commission regarding the litigation. The court of appeal affirmed. The Company’s argument that the Commission might in the future take further enforcement actions is too speculative and involves circumstances too uncertain to deprive it now of its staff’s assistance in the litigation. View "Drakes Bay Oyster Co. v. California Coastal Commission" on Justia Law

At issue in this case was the Director of the Utah Division of Air Quality’s (UDAQ) approval of certain changes at Tesoro Refining and Marketing Company’s Salt Lake City Refinery. Utah Physicians for a Healthy Environment and the Utah Chapter of the Sierra Club (collectively, Petitioner) filed a request for agency action challenging the permit allowing the changes at the refinery, arguing that the Director of UDAQ conducted a legally insufficient analysis by approving Tesoro’s changes. Upon completion of permit review adjudicative proceedings, an Administrative Law Judge (ALJ) recommended that Petitioners’ challenge be dismissed. The Executive Director of the Utah Department of Environmental Quality adopted the ALJ’s findings of fact, conclusions of law, and proposed disposition and dismissed each of Petitioners’ arguments. The Supreme Court dismissed Petitioners’ appeal, holding that because Petitioners did not address alleged deficiencies in the Executive Director’s final order in their opening brief, they failed to meet their burden of persuasion on appeal. View "Utah Physicians for a Health Environment v. Executive Director of Utah Department of Environmental Quality" on Justia Law

Plaintiffs appealed the district court’s denial of their request for a preliminary injunction to prevent the drilling of certain oil and gas wells in the Mancos Shale formation of the San Juan Basin in New Mexico. The district court concluded that Plaintiffs had failed to satisfy three of the four elements required to obtain a preliminary injunction: (1) Plaintiffs had not demonstrated a substantial likelihood of success on the merits of their claims; (2) the balance of harms weighed against Plaintiffs; and (3) Plaintiffs failed to show that the public interest favored an injunction. Finding no reversible error in the district court's denial, the Tenth Circuit affirmed. View "Dine Citizens v. Jewell" on Justia Law

Petitioners American Wild Horse Preservation Campaign, The Cloud Foundation, Return to Freedom, Carol Walker, and Kimerlee Curyl filed this action against Sally Jewell, the Secretary of the Department of the Interior, and Neil Kornze, the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM), seeking review of BLM’s decision to remove wild horses in certain areas of public land located in southwestern Wyoming within an area known as the “Checkerboard.” The Checkerboard was comprised of over one million acres of generally high desert land, and “derives its name from the pattern of alternating sections of private and public land which it comprises.” Under a 2013 consent decree, BLM agreed to remove all wild horses located on private lands in the Checkerboard. BLM maintained that “due to the unique pattern of land ownership” within the Checkerboard, “and as recognized in the Consent Decree, it is practically infeasible for the BLM to meet its obligations under Section 4 of the [Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act ("the Act")] while removing wild horses solely from the private lands sections of the [C]heckerboard.” Petitioners alleged, in pertinent part, that the removal violated the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act and the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976 (FLPMA). The district court rejected these claims. Petitioners appealed. The Tenth Circuit reversed, finding it was "improper" for BLM to construe the unambiguous terms “privately owned land” and “private lands,” as used in Section 4 of the Act, to include the public land sections of the Checkerboard. And, in turn, with respect to the FLMPA claims, it was improper for BLM to conduct what it described as a Section 4 gather on the public land sections of the Checkerboard. "By doing so, BLM violated the duties that Section 3 clearly imposes on it with respect to wild horses found on the public land sections of the Checkerboard." The Court reversed the district court and remanded this case for further proceedings. View "American Wild Horse v. Jewell" on Justia Law

In 1910, the district court issued the Little Cottonwood Morse Decree establishing water rights for the Little Cottonwood Creek. In 2013, parties bound by the contractual provisions contained in the Morse Decree filed a postjudgment motion in the case that resulted in the decree asking the district court to modify the decree. The district court denied the motion, concluding that it lacked the authority to reopen the century-old case to modify the final judgment. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding that a postjudgment motion was an inappropriate procedural vehicle to modify the Morse Decree. View "Little Cottonwood Tanner Ditch Co. v. Sandy City" on Justia Law

The NMFS used climate projections to determine that the loss of sea ice over shallow waters in the Arctic would leave the Pacific bearded seal subspecies endangered by the year 2095. Plaintiffs filed separate suits challenging the NMFS's listing decision regarding the Okhotsk and Beringia distinct population segments (DPS) of the Pacific bearded seal subspecies under the Endangered Species Act's (ESA), 16 U.S.C. 1540(g), citizen suit provision, and the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. 706. The district court denied relief with respect to the Okhotsk DPS for lack of Article III standing, but granted summary judgment to plaintiffs on their challenge to NMFS’s decision to list the Beringia DPS as a threatened species. The district court vacated the Listing Rule. The court held that, in light of the robustness of NMFS’s rulemaking process, as well as the court's highly deferential standard of review, NMFS’s final rule listing the Beringia DPS as threatened was not arbitrary or capricious, and its listing decision was supported by substantial evidence. Finally, the court concluded that NMFS clearly fulfilled its procedural and substantive obligations under Section 4(i) of the ESA to provide Alaska with a written justification. Accordingly, the court reversed the judgment. View "Alaska Oil & Gas Ass'n v. Pritzker" on Justia Law

Appellants Natural Resources Board and Applicant Two Rivers-Ottauquechee (TRO) Regional Commission appealed the Environmental Division’s award of an Act 250 permit to Applicant B&M Realty, LLC, to construct a large mixed-use business park near the Interstate 89 Exit 1 interchange in the Town of Hartford. The trial court concluded that the project satisfied Act 250, including the requirement that it conform with the 2007 TRO Regional Plan. The Natural Resources Board and the TRO Regional Commission argued on appeal that the project was inconsistent with mandatory and unambiguous provisions in the regional plan. Applicant cross-appealed, arguing that the 2007 Regional Plan did not apply, and that the Supreme Court need not consider the plan because the proposed development will not have substantial regional impact. The Supreme Court concluded that the 2007 Regional Plan applied and that the trial court’s conclusion that the project will have substantial regional impact is supported by the evidence, but held that the project was inconsistent with several provisions in the regional plan. The Court accordingly reversed. View "In re B&M Realty, LLC" on Justia Law

Petitioner State of Wyoming (the State) filed suit against the federal Department of the Interior, the Secretary of the Department, and the acting director of the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) seeking judicial review of what the State claimed was their failure to comply with non-discretionary obligations imposed upon them by the Wild Free-Roaming Horses and Burros Act. Specifically, the State alleged that respondents were statutorily obligated, but had failed, to properly manage the overpopulation of wild horses on seven areas of public land in Wyoming. Respondents moved to dismiss the petition for failure to state a claim upon which relief could be granted. The district court granted respondents’ motion and dismissed the action. The State appealed. Of particular relevance here, subsection (b) of Section 3 of the Act outlined the Secretary’s duties with respect to inventorying wild horses and dealing with overpopulation issues. The State argued that the subsection served as grounds for the Secretary to act. The Tenth Circuit found that subsection (b)(1)’s use of the phrase “whether action should be taken to remove excess animals” afforded the BLM with discretion to decide whether or not to remove excess animals. "[I]t is indisputable that only the first of these statutory requirements has been met, i.e., the determination of an overpopulation in each of the seven HMAs. Importantly, the second requirement has not been satisfied because the BLM has not determined that action is necessary to remove the excess animals. Consequently, the State cannot establish that the BLM has 'unlawfully withheld or unreasonably delayed' action that it was required to take under Section 3 of the Act, and thus has failed to state a claim upon which relief can be granted under the APA." View "State of Wyoming v. Dept. of the Interior" on Justia Law

The Board of Land and Natural Resources (BLNR) granted a permit for the University of Hawaii to construct the Advanced Technology Solar Telescope at an area set aside for astronomical observations located within a conservation district near the summit of Haleakala on the island of Maui. Kilakila 'O Haleakala (Kilakila) challenged BLNR’s approval of the permit. Both the circuit court and the Intermediate Court of Appeals affirmed BLNR’s decision. The Supreme Court affirmed, holding (1) the permit approval process was not procedurally flawed by prejudgment or by impermissible ex parte communication; and (2) BLNR validly determined that the telescope met the applicable permit criteria and was consistent with the purposes of the conservation district. View "Kilakila 'O Haleakala v. Bd. of Land & Nat. Res." on Justia Law