Justia Environmental Law Opinion Summaries

This case arose out of a permit application to obtain a water right filed by the respondents, North Snake Ground Water District, Magic Valley Ground Water District and Southwest Irrigation District (“the Districts”), to appropriate water from Billingsley Creek on real property owned by appellant Rangen, Inc. After the Director of the Idaho Department of Water Resources denied the application in a final order, the Districts petitioned for judicial review. The district court set aside the Director’s final order. Rangen appealed. Rangen historically diverted water from Billingsley Creek. Before the Department ruled on the Districts’ April 2013 application, Rangen filed a competing application on February 3, 2014. Rangen’s application sought to divert 59 cfs from Billingsley Creek for fish propagation, with the same source and point of diversion elements as the Districts had requested. On January 2, 2015, Rangen’s application was approved for 28.1 cfs for fish propagation with a priority date of February 3, 2014. This permit had apparently not been challenged. Department employee James Cefalo presided over a hearing on the Districts’ application and subsequently issued a Preliminary Order Issuing Permit in which he found that the application was made in good faith, did not conflict with the local public interest, and otherwise satisfied the necessary requirements. Therefore, he approved a conditional permit authorizing the Districts to appropriate 12 cfs from Billingsley Creek for mitigation purposes with a priority date of April 3, 2013. Rangen filed a protest of the hearing officer’s preliminary order with the Director. After the parties briefed the issues, the Director subsequently issued a final order overturning the hearing officer’s decision and denying the application. The Director concluded that the Districts’ application was made in bad faith and that the application was not in the local public interest. The Districts petitioned for judicial review, asserting that the Director abused his discretion and exceeded his authority in denying their application. On judicial review, the district court set aside the Director’s final order, concluding that the application was neither made in bad faith nor counter to the local public interest. The district court also rejected Rangen’s arguments that the Districts’ application was incomplete or speculative and that mitigation is not a recognized beneficial use of water under Idaho law. Rangen appealed again. After review of the district court record, the Supreme Court concluded the district court did not err in its judgment and affirmed. View "Rangen, Inc v. North Snake Ground Water Dist." on Justia Law

Coyote Lake Ranch, about 40 square miles, in the Texas Panhandle, is used for agriculture, raising cattle, and hunting. It is primarily grass-covered sand dunes, with some is irrigated cropland. Water comes from the Ogallala Aquifer, the principal source of water for the Texas High Plains, including the City of Lubbock, about 90 miles southeast of the Ranch. In 1953, during “‘one of the most devastating droughts in 600 years,’” the Ranch deeded its groundwater to the city, reserving water for domestic use, ranching operations, oil and gas production, and agricultural irrigation, by one or two wells in each of 16 specified areas. In 2012, the city announced plans to increase water-extraction efforts on the Ranch, drilling as many as 20 test wells in the middle of the Ranch, followed by 60 wells across the Ranch. The Ranch objected that the proposed drilling would increase erosion and injure the surface unnecessarily. The court of appeal dissolved a temporary injunction entered in favor of the Ranch. The Supreme Court of Texas remanded, agreeing that an injunction “so broad as to enjoin a defendant from activities which are a lawful and proper exercise of his rights” was an abuse of discretion. The court cited the accommodation doctrine as applicable to a interests in groundwater: a lessee has an implied right to use the land as necessary for production and removal of the resource, with due regard for the landowner’s rights. View "Coyote Lake Ranch, LLC v. City of Lubbock" on Justia Law

The issue this interlocutory appeal presented for the Vermont Supreme Court's review centered on whether 12 V.S.A. 462 created an exemption from the general six-year limitation for Vermont’s claims against a host of defendants for generalized injury to state waters as a whole due to groundwater contamination from gasoline additives. On the basis of the statute of limitations, the trial court dismissed the State’s claims insofar as they were predicated on generalized injury to state waters as a whole. On appeal, the State argued that section 462 exempted the State’s claims from the statute of limitations, and, alternatively, that the State’s claims arising under 10 V.S.A. 1390, a statute that established a state policy that the groundwater resources of the state are held in trust for the public, were not time barred because that statute became effective less than six years before the State filed its complaint. The Supreme Court affirmed. View "Vermont v. Atlantic Richfield Company, et al." on Justia Law

ONDA filed suit challenging a wind-energy development on the ground that the BLM's environmental review of the project did not adequately address impacts to the greater sage grouse. The court concluded that the BLM’s review did not adequately assess baseline sage grouse numbers during winter at the Echanis site, where the wind turbines are to be installed. Because this error was not harmless, the court reversed the district court's grant of summary judgment for the BLM and others as to this issue. However, the court concluded that ONDA did not exhaust its argument regarding genetic connectivity where ONDA did not bring the issue to the BLM's attention during the environmental review process. Accordingly, the issue was not exhausted and is not subject to review. View "ONDA v. Jewell" on Justia Law

The Maryland Critical Area law establishes a cooperative program with local jurisdictions to ensure that land near Chesapeake Bay and the Atlantic coastal bays has special protection against development that might cause environmental damage. Although the law allows a property owner to seek a variance, it places the burden of proof on the applicant to demonstrate that the applicant would suffer an “unwarranted hardship” without the variance and that granting the variance will not have an adverse environmental impact. Schwalbach sought a variance from a Worcester County ordinance that limits piers to 100 feet in length, in order to access navigable water from his waterfront property in a community where piers and boating are common. Schwalbach obtained necessary federal, state, and local environmental agency approvals. The County Board of Zoning Appeals granted the variance. The Circuit Court, the Court of Special Appeals, and the Maryland Court of Appeals upheld the approval.Schwalbach was not required to show that he would be denied all reasonable and significant use of his land without the variance, but rather that he would be denied a reasonable and significant use throughout the entire property. There was sufficient evidence to conclude that Schwalbach satisfied that standard and the standard that there be no adverse environmental impact from granting the variance. View "Assateague Coastal Trust v. Schwalbach" on Justia Law

MCA owns 85 acres in Maidencreek Township and hopes to develop into a 600,000 square-foot shopping center. The Township Board of Supervisors has taken the public position that the shopping center is “vital” to the economic well-being of Township residents. MCA and the Board claim that the Pennsylvania Department of Transportation’s plan to improve an adjacent highway, State Route 222, will impede the project. The highway improvement will be undertaken by PADOT on behalf of the U.S. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, and fully funded by the federal government. MCA claims that the Project should not proceed because planned traffic circles would not be able to handle all of the traffic expected to be generated by its shopping center. The Project was approved in 2014. PADOT determined, under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), 42 U.S.C. 4321, that the Project qualified a Categorical Exclusion from preparing an Environmental Impact Statement or Environmental Assessment. MCA and the Board alleged that the Categorical Exclusion approval was based on inaccurate information supplied by PADOT that had not been adequately studied or investigated, and that the findings and conclusions contained therein were arbitrary and capricious. The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal, finding the allegations insufficient to establish violation of NEPA. View "Maiden Creek Assocs. LP v. Pa. Dep't of Transp." on Justia Law

The City of Russellville created the City Corporation to operate, maintain, and improve the city’s municipal waterworks system. The City Corporation managed a water treatment plant that provided potable drinking water to the residents of Russellville. In 1998, Carrothers Construction Company of Arkansas, LLC (Carrothers) constructed an expansion of the water-treatment plant. Carrothers purchased several items of machinery and equipment for the project. Carrothers installed this machinery and equipment for an extensive three-phase water treatment process at the Russellville plant. In 2004, the auditor for the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) conducted an audit of Carrothers’s records pertaining to its activities and purchases in 1999 and 2000 in performing its contractual obligations to expand the Russellville water treatment plant. The auditor determined that Carrothers purchased personal property from out-of-state vendors and that these purchases were subjected to Arkansas’s state and local use taxes, plus interest. Carrothers objected to the assessments, resulting in a lawsuit to challenge the tax assessments, and to demand refund of additional use taxes paid. Carrothers filed a motion for summary judgment asserting that there were no genuine issues of material fact and that, as a matter of law, it qualified for a manufacturing exemption. In 2015, the circuit court granted Carrothers’s motion for summary judgment and ruled that Carrothers was entitled to the manufacturing exemption. The Supreme Court reversed and remanded: "Carrothers acquired materials and constructed a facility to treat and clean the water, but it did not manufacture the water. Thus, Carrothers is not entitled to the manufacturing exemption," and therefore not entitled to summary judgment as a matter of law. View "Walther v. Carrothers Constr. Co. of Ark." on Justia Law

Pursuant to Mass. Gen. Laws ch. 21N, 3(d), the Department of Environmental Protection was required to promulgate regulations “establishing a desired level of declining annual aggregate emission limits for sources or categories of sources that emit greenhouse gas emissions” by a certain date. When the Department failed to take action by the statutory deadline, Plaintiffs filed a complaint seeking declaratory relief or, in the alternative, a writ of mandamus, arguing that the Department had failed to fulfill its statutory mandate under section 3(d). The superior court judge entered judgment in the Department’s favor, concluding that the Department substantially complied with the requirements of section 3(d). The Supreme Judicial Court vacated the judgment of the superior court, holding that the three regulatory initiatives cited by the Department fell short of complying with the requirements of section 3(d). Remanded. View "Kain v. Dep’t of Envtl. Prot." on Justia Law

This appeal was one of six related cases arising out of a proposed project to pump fresh groundwater from an underground aquifer in the Mojave Desert (the Project). The aquifer was located below real property owned by Cadiz, Inc. In this case, the Center for Biological Diversity, San Bernardino Valley Audubon Society, and Sierra Club, San Gorgonio Chapter (collectively, CBD), and the National Parks Conservation Association (National Parks) filed a petition for a writ of mandate in the trial court, challenging the approval of the Project under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The named respondents were the Santa Margarita Water District (as the lead agency for the Project); the Board of Directors of the Santa Margarita Water District; the County of San Bernardino, a responsible agency for the Project (the County); and the Board of Supervisors of the County of San Bernardino. The trial court denied the petition. On appeal, appellants contended: (1) Santa Margarita was improperly designated as the lead agency for the Project, and that this error so tainted the environmental review process that such designation requires preparation of a new environmental impact report (EIR); (2) the EIR's project description was inaccurate and misleading because the Project was described as a means of conserving water, but would not save from evaporation an amount of water equal to the amount being pumped from the aquifer over the life of the Project; (3) the EIR was misleading because it did not provide an accurate duration for pumping by the Project; and (4) the Project would pump more water from the aquifer than was contemplated by and discussed in the EIR. Having reviewed the EIR and related documents, the Court of Appeal concluded the trial court did not err in denying the application for a writ of mandate. View "Center for Biological Diversity v. County of San Bernardino" on Justia Law

This appeal was one of six related cases arising out of a proposed project to pump fresh groundwater from an underground aquifer in the Mojave Desert (the Project). The aquifer was located below real property owned by Cadiz, Inc. Delaware Tetra Technologies, Inc. filed a petition for a writ of mandate in the trial court, challenging a resolution by the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors authorizing the execution of a memorandum of understanding (MOU) among the County, Cadiz, the Santa Margarita Water District, and the Fenner Valley Mutual Water Company. Delaware Tetra argued that the County improperly approved the Memorandum without having performed the necessary environmental review under the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). The trial court denied the petition for a writ of mandate, and Delaware Tetra appealed. The Court of Appeal concluded environmental review was not required before the County approved the Memorandum. Furthermore, the Court concluded the MOU did not violate either the County's relevant groundwater management ordinance or common law. Therefore, the Court affirmed. View "Delaware Tetra Tech. Inc. v. County of San Bernardino" on Justia Law