McDonnell to feds: It’s time to expedite drilling off coast

Alexandria to pay $36M to settle condemnation

By Peter Vieth
Published: June 14, 2010
Tags: Alexandria Circuit Court, Environmental, Million-Dollar Settlements

The Alexandria Sanitation Authority will pay $36 million to resolve a three-year condemnation battle over a 10-acre site marked for expansion of a sewage plant. The owners of the tract hoped to sell it for $42 million in 2006 to a developer who planned a high-rise retail and office project. The plan was scotched, the [...]

EPA orders farms to stop discharges

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: June 7, 2010
Tags: Environmental

The Environmental Protection Agency is ordering two Virginia farms to stop discharging pollutants into Shenandoah River tributaries. The EPA says during inspections the farms were discharging pollutants, including nitrogen and phosphorus from animal manure, into the streams without a permit required by the Clean Water Act. The federal agency is ordering the farms to stop [...]

Northern Virginia goes green without disputes

By Peter Vieth
Published: May 26, 2010
Tags: Environmental, Going Green

The world of green building standards has been largely free of lawyers and lawsuits, but the formerly peaceful world of sustainable development soon may be getting its first taste of litigation. Pointing to a failed challenge to the environmental credentials of a Wisconsin high school, a Washington lawyer concludes the field is wide open for [...]

Chesapeake Bay gets best water quality grade since 2002

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: May 24, 2010
Tags: Environmental

MIDDLE RIVER, Md.—Parts of the Chesapeake Bay made modest improvements in water quality and other indicators of overall health in 2009, according to a report released last week. But the head of a bay advocacy group said the nation’s largest estuary is “still dangerously out of balance.” An annual report card by the University of [...]

Environmental – Pollutant Discharge – Stormwater Basin – Sports Complex

By Deborah Elkins
Published: May 18, 2010
Tags: Environmental, Judge Henry E. Hudson, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

Although a woman who owned a 16-acre farm adjacent to the King William County High School lost her Clean Water Act lawsuit against the school board for the alleged discharge of pollutants onto her land from a stormwater retention basin installed as part of a 2006 enlargement of the high school athletic complex, she does [...]

McDonnell gets victory with move on offshore drilling

By The Associated Press
Published: April 1, 2010
Tags: Environmental, Gov. Bob McDonnell

(AP) Gov. Bob McDonnell won a key piece in his bid to make Virginia an energy power when President Obama cleared the way Wednesday for gas and oil exploration off of the state’s coast. While far from a done deal, the decision to open the Atlantic Coast to offshore drilling starting with Virginia at the [...]

Environmental – Clean Water Act – Pollutant Discharge – Stormwater Basin

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 23, 2010
Tags: Environmental, Judge Henry E. Hudson, U.S. District Court - Eastern District

A woman who owned a 16-acre farm adjacent to the King William County High School cannot sue the school board under the Clean Water Act for the alleged discharge of pollutants onto her land from a stormwater retention basin installed as part of a 2006 enlargement of the high school athletic complex, says a Richmond [...]

Environmental – Chesapeake Bay Act – Dillon Rule

By Deborah Elkins
Published: March 8, 2010
Tags: Environmental, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Supreme Court of Virginia

The Virginia Supreme Court says a locality is not expressly or impliedly authorized to utilize as a criterion for designating Chesapeake Bay Preservation Areas within its jurisdiction, whether the particular land is among the “lands designated as part of the Coastal Barrier Resources System,” created by the federal Coastal Barrier Resources Act, and the contrary [...]

Environmental – Clean Water Act – Natural Gas Terminal

By Deborah Elkins
Published: January 11, 2010
Tags: 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, Environmental, Judge Clyde H. Hamilton

The 4th Circuit denies a petition for review of the denial by the Maryland Department of the Environment of petitioners’ request for water quality certification under the Clean Water Act of a proposed large-scale liquefied natural gas marine import terminal and pipeline project. Pursuant to § 19(d)(1) of the Natural Gas Act, 15 U.S.C. § [...]