Construction of a Taiwanese company’s $9.4 billion plastics complex in Louisiana began this week, despite a stay-at-home order to slow the spread of the coronavirus and high water levels that make construction near levees illegal.
Read moreThe Center for Biological Diversity sued Interior Secretary David Bernhardt in New Orleans Federal Court for failing to list the wetlands-dwelling eastern black rail as endangered due to loss of habitat.
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Ahead of this year’s hurricane season for the Atlantic Basin, research released Monday suggests that wetlands could serve as better and more cost-effective protection from such storms than engineered solutions such as sea walls and levees.
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Environmentalists sued a San Francisco Bay Area city Monday to stop the construction of a luxury apartment complex in an area comprised of sensitive wetlands susceptible to a rising sea.
Read moreOregon Governor Kate Brown signed a bill Friday that environmentalists say will weaken protections of wetlands and intermittent streams, reversing course after announcing on Monday that she would likely veto the controversial bill.
Read moreThe Seventh Circuit ruled that the U.S. Department of Agriculture arbitrarily determined that a farm was no longer eligible for certain benefits, because a farmer cut down nine trees. The agency determined that the tree removal converted several acres of wetlands into croplands, but it did not present any evidence that the tree removal “altered the wetland hydrology.”
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A Northern California vineyard will have to pay $3.7 million as part of a settlement agreement for its unauthorized construction that destroyed natural wetlands and threatened Mendocino County’s watershed.
Read moreHoping to freeze the new wetlands rules, a coalition consisting of several California water suppliers and the city of San Francisco sued the water board late Wednesday.
Read moreThe Florida Supreme Court has been asked to decide a years-long dispute over oil drilling in the Everglades that opponents say could lead to spills and hurt wildlife.
Read moreSANTA CRUZ, Calif. — A state judge ruled against an environmental group’s objections to repairs to a rail line, paving
Read moreDams erode tropical coastlines at a rate that may outweigh the environmental benefits of clean hydroelectric energy, according to a study published Wednesday in the journal Science Advances.
Read moreAs rising seawater gives way to flooding, coastal wetlands will play an important role in managing carbon emissions and should be properly managed to offset atmospheric carbon emissions, according to a new study published Wednesday.
Read moreA Louisiana appeals court ruled 4-1 Wednesday that the state’s Department of Natural Resources properly issued a permit for the construction of the Bayou Bridge Pipeline through fragile wetlands and an area known as “cancer alley” for its chemical plants and residents’ health problems.
Read moreMinnesota pollution regulators granted the final state permits Thursday for the operation of a contentious $1 billion copper-nickel mine and processing plant in the Superior National Forest.
Read moreA conservation group says Tanzania’s agreement with Egyptian companies to build a huge hydroelectric dam in the Selous Game Reserve risks damage to an important wetland and could hurt the livelihoods of over 200,000 people who live downstream.
Read moreThe Trump administration unveiled a plan Tuesday to drain federal protections for wetlands and other isolated bodies of water, doing away with the Obama-era Clean Water Rule opposed by farmers.
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Bayou Bridge Pipeline trespassed on private land in the Atchafalaya Basin when it laid a pipeline without permission, a judge ruled Thursday, but he granted each of three property owners only $150 in damages and approved Bayou Bridge’s request to expropriate the land.
Read moreAttorneys for three landowners who say Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC trespassed, cut down hardwood trees and buried a crude oil pipeline, effectively expropriating their land, expressed frustration Thursday at the conclusion of a trial that the judge will did not allow more discussion of the public and environmental toll of pipelines and oil and gas in general.
Read moreAttorneys representing landowners in the Atchafalaya Basin will meet in a pretrial hearing Friday with attorneys for Bayou Bridge Pipeline LLC, the corporation they say trespassed on their land, cut down hardwood trees, dug trenches and buried a crude oil pipeline without their permission. At issue, attorneys say, is the larger issue of why Louisiana allows corporations to expropriate private property by eminent domain in the first place.
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