Past Cases

ELC’s past work includes:

Cleaning up agricultural pollution in central California

Our students have represented Monterey Coastkeeper/the California Coastkeeper Alliance in its efforts to get state and regional agencies to more effectively regulate polluted agricultural runoff in central California. Here we highlight some of our many matters related to this:

  • Monterey Coastkeeper v. State Water Board (Case II):

Defending the California coast

The Clinic weighed in via amicus on behalf of Surfrider Foundation and environmental justice group Azul in a recent California Court of Appeal case, Lent v. California Coastal Commission. The brief supports the California Coastal Commission’s use of its enforcement power to thwart private property owners’ efforts to block public access to the coast.

The Clinic also drafted an amicus on behalf of Planning and Conservation League and social and environmental justice group Central Coast Alliance for a Sustainable Economy (CAUSE) to open up public access to one of the largest remaining obstructions to coastal access: Hollister Ranch.

Representing Surfrider Foundation, the Clinic joined the City of Solana Beach to defend City policies that encourage public access and restrict the use of seawalls and bluff retention devices due to the significant long-term impacts seawalls have on coastal infrastructure, property, sensitive ecosystems, and public trust resources.

Fighting Big Oil

Our students successfully took on major oil companies to defend a voter initiative that restricts oil and gas operations in Monterey County, CA.

Shepherding coastal wetlands into state conservation from private ownership

Our students represent local environmental organizations and landowners seeking to shepherd private lands adjacent to the largest coastal lagoon in the lower 48 into permanent state conservation.

Preserving the historic Presidio in San Francisco

Our students represent the Presidio Historical Association, which is working to save the Presidio from a plan that would commercialize, and forever change, that historic park in the heart of San Francisco.

Enforcing California’s Environmental Quality Act

Our students represent Landwatch San Luis Obispo County in a case challenging the unpermitted construction of a desalination plant near Cambria, California. Despite the need for long-term and deliberative planning about how to best manage Cambria’s spare water resources, the project was hastily built without the environmental review required by CEQA.

Defending and improving California’s climate change laws (AB 32)

Our students recently prepared and submitted comments on California’s proposed Mine Methane Capture Compliance Offset Protocol, a potential component of California’s cap-and-trade program for greenhouse gases. Our students have also authored amicus briefs aimed at defending California’s Low Carbon Fuel Standard, another part of California’s effort to address climate change, against constitutional and statutory challenges. The students wrote the briefs on behalf of preeminent climate change and lifecycle analysis scientists.

Defeating a huge landfill on the flanks of Joshua Tree National Park

Our students successfully represented the NPCA in its efforts to stop the Kaiser Eagle Mountain landfill from being built next to Joshua Tree National Park.