November 2012

In 2007, after decades of allowing most dairies in the Central Valley Region to operate without a water quality discharge permit, the Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board issued a general, region-wide permit regulating wastewater discharges from existing diaries.  Environmental groups sued, claiming the permit’s protections for groundwater were inadequate.  The court of appeal

Round two of a citizen group’s challenge to approval of a WalMart ended with a decisive knock-out by the City of Stockton.  The appellate court ruled that the petitioners’ planning and zoning law claims were barred by the 90-day statute of limitations in Government Code § 65009, rejecting petitioners’ argument that the statute did not

After wading through a detailed discussion relating to biological impacts (see Perkins Coie Update), the court in Preserve Wild Santee v. City of Santee dove into issues surrounding an EIR’s analysis of water supplies.  The court found the EIR invalid in part because it failed to consider the uncertainty of State Water Project water

Since the U.S. Supreme Court decided the Rapanos case in 2006, federal courts have grappled with the question of what qualifies under the Clean Water Act as “waters of the United States.”  Last week in Garland v. Central Valley Regional Water Quality Control Board, a California court sidestepped the question. 

The Regional Board issued