Energy

Ruby Pipeline

Current Status: 
Settled
Case Title and Number: 
No filing
Date Filed: 
07/15/2010

The Ruby pipeline is a project of El Paso Pipeline Corp., the country's largest pipeline company, which will cover 650 miles from southwestern Wyoming to southern Oregon.  The Ruby pipeline will carry 1.5 billion cubic feet of natural gas per day, providing a coal substitute for utilities on the West Coast. 

But the Ruby pipeline route cuts through key sagebrush habitats, and will contribute to fragmentation of sage-grouse and pygmy rabbits - both declining species that warrant protection under the Endangered Species Act. 

Staff Attorney(s): 

Auger Falls dam

Current Status: 
Case Won
Case Title and Number: 
Symbiotics v. FERC, 110 Fed. Apdx 76, 2004 Westlaw 2095615 (10th Cir. 2004)
Date Filed: 
03/03/2003

Representing Idaho Conservation League, we successfully used the public trust doctrine to block the proposed Auger Falls dams on the mid-Snake River near the city of Twin Falls.  After federal agencies had issued permits for the dam, the Idaho State Land Board voted -- after a public hearing which voiced strong opposition to another dam on the mid-Snake -- to deny a submerged lands easement.  That ruling was upheld in state district court.

Staff Attorney(s): 
Clients: 

Great Basin sage-grouse

Current Status: 
Pending
Case Title and Number: 
WWP v. Kempthorne, No. 08-cv-435-BLW (D. Idaho)
Date Filed: 
01/23/2009

This large case challenges several hundred grazing permits, oil and gas leases, and other land management decisions approved by BLM during the last years of the Bush Administration, which individually and together harm the Great Basin core population of greater sage-grouse in Idaho and Nevada.

Staff Attorney(s): 
Species: 
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