In July 2012, a three-judge panel of the Ninth Circuit ruled in Natural Resources Defense Council v. Salazar, 686 F.3d 1092 (9th Cir. 2012),  that the decision by the U.S. Bureau of Reclamation to renew a series of water service contracts in connection with the Central Valley Project did not constitute “agency action”

The U.S. Supreme Court has reversed a Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals opinion that the flow of polluted water from a concrete channel to an unlined section of the same river constituted a “discharge of pollutants.”  Los Angeles County Flood Control Dist. v. Natural Resources Defense Council, Inc.

Environmental organizations sued the Los Angeles County

A water replenishment district’s declaration of a water emergency was not subject to CEQA because the declaration itself had no environmental impact, it was authorized under the terms of a judgment imposing a physical solution on the groundwater basin,  and the district had no discretion to alter the terms of the judgment which specify the

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