Local governments in Nevada do have the standing to intervene in a lawsuit against the Interior Department, challenging the environmental impact process on a proposed water rights acquisition program, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
The case involves the Interior Department's attempt to implement a water rights acquisition program designed to settle complex and longstanding water rights issues associated with the Newlands Reclamation Project in western Nevada. Under Section 206 of the Fallon Paiute Shoshone Tribes Water Rights Settlement Act of 1990, the Interior Department is supposed to acquire enough water rights to increase and permanently sustain approximately 25,000 acres of wetlands in the Lahontan Valley. This required Interior to draw up a plan to buy 55,000 acre-feet of water from the Carson Division of the Newlands project, as well as 33,000 acre-feet of water through other methods.
Interior prepared an environmental impact statement on the water rights acquisition plan but not a programmatic EIS on the combined impact of this plan and other federal programs. Churchill County and the City of Fallon, which stood to lose water under the acquisition plan, sued to force the programmatic EIS, as did Sierra Pacific Power County. The Ninth Circuit ruled that the city and the county have standing to sue but the power company does not. Churchill County v. Babbitt, No. 97-15508, 98 Daily Journal D.A.R. 7735 (filed July 15, 1998).
The California Supreme Court has agreed to hear two new cases of interest to the planning and development community - the first dealing with water rights and the second dealing with administrative procedures before a Local Agency Formation Commission.
In the water rights case, City of Barstow v. Mojave Water Agency (S0971728), the Supreme Court will determine whether a trial judge had the power to sweep aside all existing water-rights doctrines in allocation Mojave River Basin water to cities an...
The U.S. Forest Service's supplemental environmental impact statement for a timber sale in the State of Washington was adequate, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
The case involved the Forest Service's decision to add to the sale more than 1,000 trees that were damaged by a fire. Several environmental groups sued, claiming the supplemental EIS did not adequately cover the environmental issues associated with this additional sale. But the Ninth Circuit ruled in favor of the Forest...
A California appellate court has affirmed that the Sierra Club and other environmentalists did not exhaust their administrative remedies before filing a lawsuit to challenge the San Joaquin County Local Agency Formation Commission's annexation of the Gold Rush City property to Lathrop.
However, the appellate court justices said that they consider the rule on which they based their decision "outmoded" and urged the California Legislature or the California Supreme Court to overturn it.
Gold ...
Reversing a trial judge's ruling, the Second District Court of Appeal has ruled that a development company's lawsuit against its own engineering firm is not a Strategic Lawsuit Against Public Participation - a so-called SLAPP suit - within the meaning of the state anti-SLAPP law. It is one of the few instances in which an attempt to use the state anti-SLAPP law has failed in the appellate courts.
SLAPP suits are often filed by developers against citizen groups or others who speak out against their...
The city of San Diego did not prosecute the owner of a sex club maliciously or selectively even though the city made a series of mistakes in granting him zoning approvals and then prosecuting him, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has ruled.
Reversing a district court jury's decision, the three-judge panel concluded that the city did not violate Elbert Poppell's civil rights and that Zoning Administrator Sharren Carr should not be held personally liable because she was acting in a professio...
The City of Murrieta's was wrong to declare 3,500 acres of land blighted in order to create a redevelopment project area, the Fourth District Court of Appeal has ruled.
In a lawsuit brought by the Riverside County government, the Fourth District found that the property is not "predominantly urban" nor is "blighted," both of which are required in order to create a redevelopment area.
With the exception of 200 acres of vacant county land that was withdrawn, the area in question "has been depicte...
The California Supreme Court has remanded one takings case against the Coastal Commission to the Second District Court of Appeal, in Los Angeles, to be reconsidered in light of the high court's decision in another takings case against the Coastal Commission.
In Coastal Commission v. Buckley, No. B081544, the Second District reversed a $2.1 million takings award against the California Coastal Commission, saying that the evidence on the record does not establish that the Commission's actions against a s...
Claims that Sacramento County violated the California Environmental Quality Act while approving a commercial development have been dismissed by the Third District Court of Appeal because the project opponent did not submit a written request for a hearing within 90 days of filing a lawsuit.
The attorney for opponent Forster-Gill, Inc., argued that a telephone call to the court clerk within the 90-day period was adequate, but the appellate court disagreed, ruling that the law "plainly contemplates a written request that can be, and is, filed with the court."
A state appellate court has upheld the California Coastal Commission's denial of a development permit for a small mixed-use project in Morro Bay.
The court rejected developer Dan Reddell's arguments that the commission violated his due process and equal protection rights, and that its decision was a regulatory taking of property. Instead, the Second District Court of Appeal ruled that substantial evidence supported the commission's finding that Reddell's project was inconsistent with Morro Bay's local coastal plan (LCP).
A state appellate court has thrown out an Inyo County general plan amendment that the county argued was nothing more than a clarification of a longstanding policy.
A unanimous three-judge panel of the Fourth District Court of Appeal, Division Two, concluded that the amendment was more than a mere clarification and that the county should have completed an environmental impact report before approving the amendment.
A City of West Hollywood moratorium on new multi-family housing development has been declared invalid by the Second District Court of Appeal. The court ruled that the city had not made required findings for the moratorium.
The Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals has set back a plan to develop the country's largest solid waste landfill near Joshua Tree National Park. The court ruled that the environmental analysis for the project was inadequate and that the Bureau of Land Management undervalued land it would provide to the landfill developer.
