H2-OWOW! – A Reflective Conversation with John Goodin, Former Director of EPA’s Office of Wetlands, Oceans, and Watersheds – Reflections on Water Podcast
Reflections on Sackett - Reflections on Water Podcast
Balado continuité – Environnement : nouveautés du régime d’autorisation québécois
The Koontz Decision: Limits Conditions a Government can Impose on Developers
Supreme Court Hands Landowners a Major Victory - Nossaman's Brad Kuhn
Recent federal court decisions have changed the way wetlands are regulated in the United States. Here's what you need to know. A Shift in Wetland Regulation: The Sackett Decision and Its Impact In 2023, the U.S. Supreme...more
L’Assemblée nationale a adopté, le 8 décembre dernier, des dispositions qui impacteront de manière draconienne les propriétaires dépossédés de leur terrain par un règlement municipal. Atteinte justifiée au droit de...more
Sullivan's Permitting & Land Use Practice Group and Litigation Department have released the second issue of their Zoning and Development Newsletter. The publication aims to provide our firm's clients and others interested...more
The United States District Court (E.D. Louisiana) (“Court”) issued a June 12th Order addressing a property owner’s challenge to the United States Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) assertion of Clean Water Act jurisdiction over...more
The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court (SJC) recently handed a victory to a conservation commission seeking to impose an enforcement order on a property owner who bought land containing unauthorized fill placed there by a...more
Can you still build a bulkhead along the shoreline in coastal Virginia to protect your property? Well, it depends, but now the answer is more likely to be “no.” Major changes to how Virginia tidal waterfront property owners...more
EPA and Army Corps of Engineers New “Waters of the U.S.” Definition Takes Effect on June 22 - On Tuesday, the Federal Register will officially published the Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers final...more
In 2008, EPA issued an administrative order to Chantell and Michael Sackett, requiring them to remove what EPA had concluded was illegally placed fill on their property in Northern Idaho. Litigation followed, including a...more
On Tuesday, the Massachusetts Appeals Court denied a regulatory takings claim brought by a plaintiff whose development plans for her property in Falmouth were denied by the Falmouth Conservation Commission. Plaintiff’s...more
Land Use and Development Case Summaries (short form) - 1. PLANNING AND ZONING - CENTER FOR COMMUNITY ACTION AND ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE V. CITY OF MORENO VALLEY, 26 Cal. App. 5th 689 (2018) - Based on the language and...more
The New York Supreme Court (Appellate Division)(“Court”) addressed in a January 9th opinion an evidentiary issue associated with the condemnation by the State of New York of a parcel of real property. See Kermanshahchi, et...more
The Army Corps of Engineers recently issued a Regulatory Guidance Letter (RGL) that sets out factors that should be considered by district engineers when determining the amount of mitigation credits that may be allowed for...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit (“Court”) addressed in a September 21st opinion whether language in a prior Congressional Act required the United States Army Corps of Engineers (“Corps”) to continue...more
The saga of the federal Clean Water Act’s definition of “waters of the United States” (“WOTUS”) has taken more turns recently, including a significant setback for the Trump Administration’s efforts to transition away from the...more
The United States Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit (“Court”) affirmed a lower court ruling addressing challenges to Clean Water Act nationwide permits granted to Meryln Drake by the United States Corps of Engineers...more
United States Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) Administrator E. Scott Pruitt issued a March 30th memorandum titled: Revision to Delegation of Authority 2-43, Section 404 Dredged and Fill Material Permitting...more
• U.S. Supreme Court ruled unanimously – on narrow procedural grounds – that the courts of appeals do not have original jurisdiction to hear challenges to the Clean Water Act (CWA), the Obama Administration's 2015 rule...more
In an important procedural decision, a unanimous United States Supreme Court ruled that challenges to the 2015 Obama-era rule re-defining Waters of the United States (WOTUS) under the Clean Water Act were properly before...more
In a recent blog post, we described the basic statutory and regulatory framework supporting the increasing popularity of mitigation banking. In this update, we offer some additional observations for property owners and other...more
On January 13, the Supreme Court granted a writ of certiorari in National Association of Homebuilders v. Department of Defense, a case challenging the Obama Administration’s “Waters of the United States” rule, which vastly...more
Seyfarth Synopsis: The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) has just issued a Regulatory Guidance Letter which provides to property owners (including developers) the right of appeal USACE Approved Jurisdictional...more
Massachusetts is a Home Rule state (Commonwealth, actually, but that’s a separate issue). Our 351 cities and towns can pretty much legislate as they please, so long as the local action is not preempted. Our state Wetlands...more
On May 31, 2016, the United States Supreme Court issued its decision in United States Army Corps of Engineers v. Hawkes Co., Inc. holding that approved judicial determinations as to the presence of wetlands issued by the...more
The United States Supreme Court handed landowners and developers a win this month in a unanimous decision allowing appeals to federal courts of Army Corps of Engineers determinations that a body of water or wetland is subject...more
Environmental and Policy Focus - U.S. Supreme Court allows pre-permit challenges to approved jurisdictional determinations - Allen Matkins - May 31 - In a major new legal development for the Clean Water Act's...more