A Win for Public Health: Oil Wells Stalled in Arvin
Together with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, the firm represents the Committee for a Better Arvin in a successful challenge to the City of Arvin’s approval of oil wells that would have threatened public health in a residential neighborhood. (Committee for a Better Arvin v. City of Arvin (2019).)
Property Purchase, Bridge Provide Needed Link Between State and Regional Parks In Alameda County
Photo Credit: SelfieCity, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons The firm assists the Tri-Valley Conservancy (TVC) in 2009 to acquire the Bobba property, a key linkage in Livermore between Del Valle State Park and Sycamore Grove Park. The firm then helps TVC in 2019 with funding, contracting, and construction of a bridge crossing to connect […]
SMW Drafts State Legislation to Facilitate Land Conservation and Restoration
Photo Credit: West Marin Environmental Action Committee from “Parks Are For Everyone” In 2019 the firm drafts and helps secure passage of state legislation enabling public agencies to acquire threatened lands and prepare an environmental review for restoration efforts after first protecting the land from development.
Coyote Valley Saved!
The firm works with the Peninsula Open Space Trust, the Santa Clara County Open Space Authority, and the City of San Jose to preserve 937 acres in Coyote Valley for wildlife and open space in 2019. SMW partners Bill White, Tamara Galanter, and Sara Clark receive the 2020 California Lawyer’s Attorney of the Year (CLAY) […]
Limits on Lead and Cadmium in Chocolate
In 2018, on behalf of As You Sow, the firm settles its Proposition 65 case against the leading chocolate companies over lead and cadmium in chocolate products. The settlement establishes limits on the amount of lead and cadmium in these products and convened an expert panel to identify methods for reducing these levels.
Natural Gas Power Plant Denied
The firm represents the City of Oxnard in 2018 before the California Public Utilities Commission and the California Energy Commission in its successful opposition to the location of a natural gas-fired power plant on the beach in Oxnard. This effort sets the stage for California’s adoption of energy storage and other preferred resources as a […]
No Vested Right to Quarry Expansion
The firm succeeds in the court of appeal in a case challenging Mendocino County’s approval of a large expansion of a quarry. (Keep the Code v. Mendocino County (2018).) The court agreed with the firm’s position that quarry activities occurring almost 50 years earlier did not establish a vested right to expand the mine.
Conservationists Set Sights on Preserving a Petaluma Historic Ranch, Enhancing a Regional Park
Working closely with the Earth Island Institute’s Kelly Creek Protection Project, in 2018 the firm negotiates an innovative purchase and sale agreement with a property owner that will limit development on an environmentally and historically sensitive parcel of land and extend Sonoma County’s Helen Putnam Regional Park.
SMW Defeats New Railyard Next to Disadvantaged Long Beach Community
The City of Long Beach, represented by the firm and joined by five other petitioner groups and the Attorney General, prevails in a CEQA challenge to the controversial “SCIG” railyard, whose air pollution threatened the health of nearby residents and schoolchildren. The court of appeal orders the approval rescinded. (City of Long Beach v. City […]
Getting Infrastructure Right for People and Marine Life
The California Public Utilities Commission approves a desalination plant required to provide water to the Monterey Peninsula without overdrawing the Carmel River. Project proponents wanted an oversized plant, discharging excessive, harmful brine into the Monterey Bay National Marine Sanctuary. If the plant is ever built, the firm’s work will ensure the plant is a more […]