The States of Minnesota, Wisconsin, Illinois, Ohio and Michigan recently filed suit in the Northern District of Illinois against the United States Corp of Army Engineers and the Metropolitan Water Reclamation District of Greater Chicago seeking to have the facilities designed to prevent the migration of bighead or silver (Asian) carp declared a public nuisance, to the extent that those facilities have not prevented the migration of the Asian carp into Lake Michigan, and requesting a

“permanent injunction requiring the District and the Corps to take all appropriate and necessary measures to expeditiously develop and implement plans to permanently and physically separate carp-infested waters in the Illinois River basin and the CAWS from Lake Michigan so as to prevent the migration of bighead carp, silver carp, or other harmful aquatic invasive species into Lake Michigan.”

The “asian carp” are voracious eaters which can grow up 100 pounds and up to four feet in length, consuming 40% of its body weight daily.  It spawns three times a year and has no known predators.  The concern is that if the carp become established in the Great Lakes, they would starve out other fish, and ruin the region’s $7 billion fishing industry.

The carp are currently being restrained from entering Lake Michigan by the use of electronic barriers.  Michigan had previously sought orders compelling the closing of Chicago shipping locks and gates which could provide an entrance into Lake Michigan for the fish, which were appealed to and denied by the United States Supreme Court.

However, a live Asian carp was found within a few miles of Lake Michigan last month, which state officials believe illustrates the urgency of the situation and increases the likelihood of successfully obtaining injunctive relief.

The complaint in this matter can be found at 2010 WL 2893302.

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We have had a lot of calls and provided several posts on researching issues related to the Oil Spill.  Westlaw has a new Oil Spill tab to assist you with  your research regarding the Oil Spill tragedy in the Gulf.  The tab has links to court documents, legal analysis and many other documents.

Click Add A Tab link at upper right of Westlaw.com screen.  Click Add Westlaw Tab.   Scroll down to the Topical area and place a check mark in the box to the left of Oil Spill.  Click Add to My TabSet at bottom of screen.

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Given the events of the last few months, you may want to track BP’s stock price over time and see just how far it has fallen.  Luckily, you can easily do so with the Stock Quote Service.  You can find links to the service on the site map, as well as on tabs like the Company Information tab. 

Once there, just put BP into the ticker field and click “Next.”  Then choose “Pricing History” and the time frame (daily works well for fast moving stocks like BP).  Choose your start and end dates (I suggest April 19 for a start date, the day before the oil well blowout on the Deepwater rig). 

Click “Next” and you’ll get a chart that starts like this:

Click to Enlarge

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The Minerals Management Service (MMS) division of the United States Department of the Interior under 30 C.F.R. § 250.101 is authorized to regulate oil, gas, and sulphur exploration, development, and production operations on the Outer Continental Shelf (OCS). All operations must be conducted according to the OCS Lands Act (43 U.S.C. 1331 et. seq.), the regulations in this part, MMS orders, the lease or right-of-way, and other applicable laws, regulations, and amendments; and conform to sound conservation practice to preserve, protect, and develop mineral resources of the OCS.  Because of the MMS’ regulation of oil, gas and sulpher exploration, we have recently received calls about MMS maps as they concern the Deepwater Horizon oil spill. MMS maps can be discovered with a broader search of :

Database: FR

Search:  MINERAL-MANAGEMENT-SERVICE M.M.S. & LEAS! /5 MAP (151 Docs)

Or you can try a more narrow search of:

Search:  MINERAL-MANAGEMENT-SERVICE M.M.S. & LEAS! /5 MAP & graph! (14 Docs)

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With the recent occurrence of environmental and natural disasters, one might imagine that courts would take a more thorough review of Environmental Impact Statements and how they conform to state-legislated Environmental Quality statutes.  With its iconic status as the world’s most famous amusement area, Coney Island in Brooklyn, NY is undergoing a developmental transformation into a year-round amusement destination but at what cost to the environment.  A volunteer grass-roots community organization, Save Coney Island, Inc., brought a lawsuit against the City of New York and the New York City Council in connection with the City’s rezoning of the approximately 47 acres of land that make up Coney Island (Supreme Court, New York County 116672/09).  Save Coney alleged that the City’s rezoning plan violated New York’s State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) (N.Y. Envtl. Conserv. Law §§ 8-0101 to 8-0117) as well as provisions of the General Cities Law and the New York City Administrative Code governing the adoption of zoning ordinances and amendments thereto.

 Judge Eileen Rakower in her recent opinion dated May 6th, stated that the Court’s role in SEQRA challenges is well settled, as stated by the First Department in Coalition Against Lincoln West v. Weinshall, 21 A.D.3d 215, 222 (1st Dept. 2005): 

‘Judicial review of a lead agency’s SEQRA determination is limited to whether the determination was made in accordance with lawful procedure and whether, substantively, the determination ‘was affected by an error of law or was arbitrary and capricious or an abuse of discretion‘ (CPLR 7803 [3]… )’ (Akpan v Koch, 75 NY2d 561, 570, 554 NE2d 53, 555 NYS2d 16 [1990]). In applying this standard of review, ‘it is not the role of the court to weigh the desirability of the proposed action, choose among alternatives, resolve disagreements among experts, or substitute its judgment for that of the agency’ (Matter of Fisher v Giuliani, 280 AD2d 13, 19-20, 720 NYS2d 50 [2001]). Judicial review is limited to a determination as to whether the lead agency ‘identified the relevant areas of environmental concern, took a ‘hard look‘ at them, and made a ‘reasoned elaboration‘ of the basis for its determination’ (Jackson v. New York State Dev. Corp., 67 NY2d at 417 [1986]).

For the next 8 pages of her opinion, Judge Rakower meticulously sets out a review of all the contentions raised by Save Coney Island and confirms that the City properly identified the relevant areas of environmental concern, took a ‘hard look‘ at them, and made a ‘reasoned elaboration‘ of the basis for its determination.  In contrast to the review of the alleged violations of SEQRA, Judge Rakower spent a scant 3 paragraphs on the zoning issues. Since the City is empowered to enact zoning regulations which are ‘designed to promote the public health, safety and general welfare… in accord with a well considered plan‘ under General City Law Sec. 20(25), Save Coney Island  as the party challenging the City’s zoning regulation had a substantial burden to show the regulation is arbitrary and irrational and they failed to meet this heavy burden.  As pointed out in this dispute and accentuated by recent catastrophic events, challenges to large scale land development projects will have a greater chance of being successful by attacking the thoroughness of the environmental reporting requirements and procedures than overcoming the heavy burden to overthrow a zoning regulation.

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The demise of the Deepwater Horizon oil rig on April 20, 2010 cost the lives of 11 rig workers.  The damage to the environment will be devastating, affecting hundreds of species of fish, birds and wildlife along the Gulf Coast.  The economic impact on the fishing industry and the tourism industry could be tremendous.   There have already been numerous lawsuits filed and the number will just continue to grow.

The docket databases on Westlaw can assist you in determining who the legitimate parties are in these suits and the various causes of action that might arise.  Access the DOCK-ALL database and run a search similar to this to get started:

TI(B.P. “BRITISH PETROLEUM” TRANSOCEAN HALLIBURTON “LLOYDS OF LONDON”) & ST(LA MS AL FL TX) & ENVIRONMENT! “WRONGFUL DEATH” “DEATH ON THE HIGH SEAS” “OIL POLLUTION ACT” & DA(LAST 30 DAYS).

Click on the PDF icons listed in the dockets to view the complaints as filed with the court.  If you are interested in following the status of a particular docket, simply click the TRACK THIS DOCKET link on the upper left of the docket.

The largest oil spill in history occurred during the 1991 Persian Gulf War; it released approximately 520 million gallons of oil, dwarfing the second largest spill.  The Deepwater Horizon spill is gushing 280,000 gallons of oil per day.  Some are estimating that within 50 days, the Deepwater Horizon spill might become the worst oil spill in U.S. history, overtaking the Exxon-Valdez incident which spilled eleven million gallons of crude oil along the southern coast of Alaska in 1989.  Exxon-Valdez caused a national outcry against “big oil” in the United States and led to the passage of the 1990 Oil Pollution Act.

To view the current codification of the Oil Pollution Act of 1990, do a Find to 33 USC 2701.   Click the blue hyperlink at the top of the document, Chapter 40 – Oil Pollution – to incorporate the text of all sections of the Act in to one document for ease of reading and printing.