Local Ordinance, Groundwater

King County’s Critical Areas Ordinance Update: What to Expect

Davis Wright Tremaine LLP on 8/7/2025

King County is in the final stretch of updating its Critical Areas Ordinance (CAO), with adoption expected by December 2025. The CAO governs protections for environmentally sensitive areas—like wetlands, streams, aquifers,...more

California Supreme Court Throws the Barn Doors Open, Finding That Groundwater Well Permits Aren’t Necessarily Ministerial

Downey Brand LLP on 9/3/2020

On August 27, 2020, in Protecting Our Water and Environmental Resources v. County of Stanislaus, Case No. S251709 (“Protecting Our Water”), the California Supreme Court held that the County in that instance could not...more

Columbia County Solid Waste Management System: Arkansas Court of Appeals Addresses City of Magnolia's Challenge to Allocation of...

Mitchell, Williams, Selig, Gates & Woodyard,... on 9/17/2019

The Court of Appeals of Arkansas (“Court”) addressed in a September 11th opinion the City of Magnolia, Arkansas’s (“Magnolia”) challenge to the allocation of a Columbia County sales and use tax to finance a Solid Waste...more

California Supreme Court Set to Review Companion Groundwater Cases and Resolve When County-Issued Well Permits May Be Treated As...

Downey Brand LLP on 11/27/2018

After a long drought, the California Supreme Court at its November 14, 2018 conference voted unanimously to grant review of three decisions involving the question of whether well permits issued pursuant to county ordinances...more

Currents - Energy Industry Insights - May 2018 #3

Spilman Thomas & Battle, PLLC on 5/18/2018

Study Finds No Evidence of Groundwater Contamination Attributable to Natural Gas Development - "A multi-year study conducted by researchers at the University of Cincinnati, and partly funded by organizations opposed to...more

Beware Environmental Regulations Lurking in Local Codes – Such as the Wellhead Protection Program

Tonkon Torp LLP on 6/15/2017

Most companies know that the environmental impacts of their operations are regulated by the federal government (primarily the US Environmental Protection Agency) and various state governments (in Oregon, primarily the Oregon...more