July 15, 2019 | Category:
NewsIn the unpublished opinion Center for Biological Diversity v. California Department of Conservation, Division of Oil, Gas, and Geothermal Resources et al. (2019 WL 2133616), the Third District Court of Appeal upheld a program EIR prepared by the Department of Conservation to consider the environmental effects of well stimulation treatments, such as hydraulic fracturing. The […]
July 11, 2019 | Category:
NewsMitchell Chadwick attorneys G. Braiden Chadwick and John Wheat recently represented a client in a successful request for a determination of vested right to continue surface mining on a property in Merced County. The property, known as the Kelsey Ranch property, has been in the Kelsey family since the late 1800s, passed down from Erastus […]
June 21, 2019 | Category:
NewsUnder the Obama administration, the EPA finalized the Emissions Guidelines and New Source Performance Standards rules to address changes in the landfill industry since prior rulemaking in 1996. The EPA was supposed to approve plans from states related to the implementation of the emissions guidelines and create a federal plan but the Trump administration has […]
June 20, 2019 | Category:
NewsCalifornia’s Commission on Catastrophic Wildfire Cost and Recovery recently released a draft report recommending that California change its current liability standards relating to when utilities can be held responsible for wildfires. The report was called for by SB 901 which was enacted last year to address the escalating danger that wildfires present to California residents […]
June 19, 2019 | Category:
NewsU.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Andrew Wheeler recently signed a memorandum directing staff to develop plans to reform the process of evaluating the costs and benefits of new regulations. Wheeler specifically instructed the agency’s offices governing water, land, and air quality to identify ways to make the process of evaluating the costs and benefits […]
June 18, 2019 | Category:
NewsCompanies may be exposed to unexpected Superfund site cleanup costs beyond those agreed to in deals with the government. The Supreme Court granted review of a Montana Supreme Court’s decision that residents can sue BP America Ltd. for costs related to cleaning up their properties, even though the company already settled with the U.S. Environmental […]
June 17, 2019 | Category:
NewsThe U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) internal watchdog announced on June 13, 2019, that it will audit the EPA’s permitting process for a planned $1 billion Minnesota copper and nickel mine in order to determine whether the EPA complied with Clean Water Act (CWA) requirements and National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) regulations. The EPA’s […]
Citing violations of California’s Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, the State of California and several environmental and fishing groups are suing a San Joaquin Valley irrigation district over its efforts to help the federal government raise the height of California’s largest reservoir, Shasta Dam. The lawsuit argues that the project poses significant risks to the […]
The Second District Court of Appeal issued an unpublished decision in the case Los Padres Forestwatch et al., v. County of Ventura on May 1, 2019, addressing the preparation of an EIR addendum for a 2015 CUP allowing the continued operation of existing oil and gas wells and the addition of new wells. The case […]
The U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) has declined to review the Ninth Circuit’s decision in Bohmker v. Oregon, holding that Oregon’s five-year moratorium on the use of motorized mining equipment in rivers and streams that contain essential salmon habitat is not preempted by federal law. The Oregon law was passed following California’s revisions to California Fish […]
