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Pipe Dream: Feds Sued Over Desert Water Pipeline OK’d by Trump

/in , , /by /Courthouse News Serviceby Nathan Solis

Just before the Trump administration headed out the door, a federal agency this past December cleared the way for a private company to begin pumping groundwater from under the Mojave Trails National Monument in Southern California. The Cadiz water project would extract roughly 16.3 billion gallons of groundwater every year for 50 years from aquifers north of Joshua Tree National Park. The project would overtax the surrounding environment, according to environmentalists who filed a lawsuit to halt the project Tuesday.

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A Housing Developer and a Powerful Water Utility, are Caught in a Fight: How much Water is There?

/in , , /by /The Nevada Independentby Daniel Rothberg

Five wells punch the scorching Nevada desert.

Water in this area is locked underneath the ground. It flows silently and invisibly as part of an aquifer stretching roughly 50,000 square-miles. Much of this water collected here thousands of years ago when lakes covered most of Nevada. Now wells are summoning it for human use. The problem is there’s not enough to go around.

At the center of this tension are the five wells.

A housing developer, Coyote Springs Investment, owns four wells, planted to one day pump water for a sprawling new community in the desert, filling the highway stretch about 50 miles northeast of Las Vegas. The remaining well belongs to the Southern Nevada Water Authority.

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Judge OKs Suit by California, Other States over Lessened Protections for Endangered Species

/in , , /by /San Francisco Chronicleby Bob Egelko

California and 16 other states can sue the Trump administration for rolling back enforcement of the Endangered Species Act by allowing consideration of economic impacts, disregarding climate change and allegedly weakening protections for many imperiled creatures, a federal judge ruled Monday.

In denying administration officials’ request to dismiss the suit, U.S. District Judge Jon Tigar of Oakland said the states had shown they could suffer biological and economic harm if the law were weakened.

The Endangered Species Act, signed by President Richard Nixon in 1973, protects the existence and habitat of more than 1,600 plants and animals threatened with extinction. More than 300 of the species live in California’s lands and waters, including bighorn sheep, gray wolves, humpback whales and bald eagles.

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Court Nixes Groups’ Endangered Species Suits, OKs State Case

/in , , /by /Bloomberg Lawby Ellen Gilmer

Environmental and animal advocacy groups haven’t shown they have legal standing to challenge the Trump administration’s revised Endangered Species Act regulations, but a lawsuit from a coalition of states can move forward, a federal court ruled Monday.

The U.S. District Court for the Northern District of California tossed a lawsuit from the Center for Biological Diversity, Defenders of Wildlife, and other groups, and a similar suit from the Animal Legal Defense Fund, but gave them 21 days to file an amended complaint with more information to support their claims that the regulations harm their members.

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