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“Fishing is an art of patience and timing.” – Daan Uijterwaal

In a published opinion filed May 29, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) affirmed a judgment denying a petition for a writ of ordinary mandamus to compel public agency respondents, including the City and County of San Francisco (“City”) and the San Francisco Public Utilities Commission (“SFPUC”), to immediately obtain an amended water supply permit and open the City-owned Calaveras Reservoir in its natural state to public fishing.  Timothy James Dummer v. City and County of San Francisco, et al. (2026) ___ Cal.App.5th ___.  The Court held that the writ was properly denied because plaintiff and appellant Dummer had not demonstrated any failure by the public agency defendants to perform a ministerial duty under applicable law.

Continue Reading First District Holds CEQA Review of Calaveras Reservoir Fishing Program Proposed Pursuant to Health and Safety Code Requirements Is Prerequisite to Reservoir Owner San Francisco’s Application to SWRCB for Amended Water Supply Permit Allowing Public Fishing; Rejects Mandate Petitioner’s Arguments that State Statutes and Constitution Imposed Ministerial Duty on City to Provide Immediate Public Fishing Access to Reservoir In Its Natural State

In an important published opinion filed March 26, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 2) affirmed a trial court’s judgment denying the third CEQA writ petition filed over the last fifteen years challenging Caltrans’ EIR for a project to improve a one-mile stretch of U.S. Highway 101 running through Richardson Grove State Park in Humboldt County.  At issue in each action filed in the serial CEQA litigations – which the Court described as a “labyrinthine” “15-year litigation odyssey” – was the legal adequacy of the EIR’s analysis of the project’s impacts on adjacent old-growth redwood trees and their root systems.  Bess Bair et al. v. California Department of Transportation et al. (2026) 119 Cal.App.5th 579.  After an extensive procedural and legal analysis, the Court held the last petition was properly denied on res judicata grounds following the trial court’s discharge of peremptory writs in the two earlier actions by final orders that were never appealed.

Continue Reading When CEQA Litigation Becomes “One Battle After Another”:  First District Holds Res Judicata Precludes Third CEQA Action Challenging Caltrans’ Richardson Grove State Park Highway Improvement Project Where Petitioners Sought to Relitigate Issues Necessarily Resolved By Unappealed Final Orders Discharging Two Earlier Writs

In a lengthy published opinion filed March 5, 2026, the Second District Court of Appeal (Div. 6) affirmed the trial court’s judgment adopting a “physical solution,” to be implemented by a watermaster, in a multiparty, three-phase litigation adjudicating competing groundwater rights in a Ventura County basin pursuant to the procedures of Code of Civil Procedure section 830 et seq.  Los Posas Valley Water Rights Coalition v. Ventura County Waterworks District No. 1 et al. (2026) 118 Cal.App.5th 1170.  While the constitutional, statutory, regulatory, and judicial water law rules and principles discussed and applied in the case are important and interesting, I’m not going to write further about them here; rather, in keeping with this blog’s subject matter, I’ll stick to the two paragraphs of the Court’s 45-page opinion that disposed of the novel CEQA arguments raised by a dissatisfied plaintiff and appellant.

Continue Reading Second District Reaffirms That CEQA Doesn’t Apply To Courts Or Their Agents

In a published opinion filed March 4, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s post-judgment order denying losing CEQA plaintiffs’ motion for attorneys’ fees brought pursuant to Code of Civil Procedure (“CCP”) section 1021.5 under a catalyst theory.  Physicians for Social Responsibility – Los Angeles et al. v Department of Toxic Substances Control (2026) 118 Cal.App.5th 1071. It held the trial court did not abuse its discretion in denying fees where the underlying action was adjudicated to a final judgment adverse to plaintiffs and defendant’s voluntary post-litigation actions altering an FEIR’s analysis were thus not performed under threat of judicial compulsion.

Continue Reading Third District Holds Adverse Judgment Bars Losing CEQA Plaintiffs’ Catalyst Fee Claim

In a partially published opinion filed on February 2, 2026, the First District Court of Appeal (Div. 3) addressed a “weighty issue . . . affecting the CEQA responsibilities of local governments throughout the state” in reversing the trial court’s judgment granting a writ petition challenging the adequacy of the Town of Tiburon’s (“Town”) program EIR for its general plan/housing element update.  The Committee for Tiburon LLC v. Town of Tiburon (Sierra Pines Group, LLC, Real Party in Interest) (2026) 118 Cal.App.5th259.  Applying CEQA tiering principles in the context of the Town’s update of its general plan and housing element site inventory to comply with state housing law, the Court held “that a program EIR for a local agency’s general plan need not include a site-specific environmental analysis of a site identified in its housing element where . . . no housing project has been proposed for the site.”  It reasoned that “[w]hen a housing project has not even been proposed, the lack of project-specific details precludes an informed review of environmental impacts and mitigation measures, and deferral of such a review to a site-specific, project-level EIR analysis is appropriate.”

Continue Reading Process Versus Production:  First District Upholds Program EIR For Tiburon’s General Plan/Housing Element Update, Holds Site-Specific Analysis Of Impacts Of Developing Identified RHNA Inventory Site Can Be Deferred Under CEQA Tiering Principles Until Specific Project Is Proposed

In a 7-page Order filed January 28, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal denied Appellant DWR’s request for rehearing and modified its partially published opinion in Department of Water Resources v. Metropolitan Water District of Southern California et al. / Sierra Club et al. v. Department of Water Resources (previously published at 117 Cal.App.5th 751, and which I previously posted on here), with no change in the judgment.  The Order, which can be viewed here, makes mostly minor revisions, such as adding supporting citations, correcting punctuation and typographical errors, and making clarifying corrections in the technical descriptions of certain proposals and Feather River Project components.  (Order, at pp. 2-6.)  The Order’s most substantive change is its elimination and narrowing of certain dicta in language near the Opinion’s end, regarding hypothetical “problematic” results that may have resulted from a contrary judgment validating DWR’s Bond Resolutions.

Continue Reading Third District Denies Rehearing, Modifies Opinion in “Delta Program” DWR Bond Validation Case

In a published opinion filed January 14, 2026, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the Sacramento County Superior Court’s judgment denying the City of Vallejo’s (“Vallejo”) writ petition challenging the City of American Canyon’s (“American Canyon”) EIR certification for and approval of the Giovannioni Logistics Project, a 2.4 million square foot warehouse complex on a 208-acre tract of undeveloped, industrially zoned land in American Canyon (the “Project”).  City of Vallejo v. City of American Canyon (Buzz Oates LLC, et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2026) 117 Cal.App.5th 1112.  The Court rejected appellant Vallejo’s arguments that the Project EIR violated the water supply disclosure requirements of CEQA and its Guidelines, and also the provisions of Water Code sections 10910 and 10911.

Continue Reading Third District Affirms Judgment Upholding American Canyon’s EIR for Industrial Warehouse Project and Related WSA Against Vallejo’s CEQA and Water Code Challenges Based On Allegedly Inadequate Water Supply Analyses

The laudable efforts of the Legislature in adopting “super statutes” such as the Housing Accountability Act (“HAA”; Gov. Code, § 65589.5) notwithstanding, housing in California remains a scarce and precious commodity.  The interplay of the HAA with another “super statute” – CEQA (Pub. Resources Code, § 21000 et seq.) – also continues to be the subject of interesting and important litigation in which the core objectives and provisions of these two statutory schemes clash and must be reconciled.  The First District Court of Appeal’s mostly published 36-page opinion in Coalition of Pacificans for an Updated Plan v. City Council of the City of Pacifica (2025) 117 Cal.App.5th 647, filed on December 30, 2025, deals with the immediate economic fallout from such a clash; the context of the decision was the parties’ post-judgment battle over attorneys’ fees in a case where the CEQA plaintiff prevailed in challenging the HAA-protected housing development approvals for a small infill project in a physically challenging location.  While the City and housing developer prevailed in their appeal of an adverse fee award, their victory might be short-lived or of limited impact in light of the narrow grounds on which the Court of Appeal reversed, and the significant discretion the trial court still retains in reconsidering the fee award on remand.  Thus, in one of the opinion’s many ironies, the case could actually represent a setback for those seeking to use the protections of the HAA to defend housing projects from being sued, and to protect local agencies and developers from hefty fee awards when such suits are successful.

Continue Reading Clash of the “Super Statutes”:  First District Construes HAA’s Statutory Provisions Aimed at Disincentivizing CEQA Challenges to Housing Projects By Curbing Fee Awards

In a mostly published 43-page opinion filed December 31, 2025, the Third District Court of Appeal affirmed the trial court’s judgment in consolidated actions consisting of the Department of Water Resources’ (“DWR”) in rem validation action seeking to validate its authority to issue revenue bonds for the “Delta Program,” and a reverse-validation action brought under CEQA, the Delta Reform Act, and the public trust doctrine by various environmental NGOs, and other governmental agencies and entities, challenging that authority.  Department of Water Resources v. The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California et al. / Sierra Club et al. v. Department of Water Resources (The Metropolitan Water District of Southern California et al., Real Parties in Interest) (2025) _117 Cal.App.5th 751.  The Court of Appeal held the trial court properly denied validation of DWR’s authority to issue revenue bonds under Water Code § 11260 to finance the planning, acquisition, and construction of the nebulously defined “Delta Program” as a supposed modification of the existing “Feather River Project” component of the State Water Project (“SWP”), which is one of many separate and distinct legislatively-authorized “Units” of the Central Valley Project (“CVP”).

Continue Reading Third District Affirms Judgment Denying Validation of DWR Bonds to Finance Amorphously Defined “Delta Program” Conveyance Facilities As Unauthorized By Water Code Section 11260, Mooting Appeals of Unsuccessful CEQA Challenges

On December 30, 2025, one day after Chief Justice Guerrero recused herself, the California Supreme Court issued an order denying the depublication request and petition for review of Defendant and Respondent City of San Diego in Save Our Access v. City of San Diego (2025) 115 Cal.App.5th 388 (Supreme Court Case No. S293971). The Court’s action leaves intact the Fourth District’s published opinion invalidating the Supplemental EIR for the second City-sponsored ballot measure to remove a long-standing 30-foot building height limit in its Midway-Pacific Highway Community Planning area; it represents yet another setback for the City in its years-long quest to update its zoning regulations in a key urban area by removing the 50-year-old restriction. In my opinion, the decision to deny review also represents a missed opportunity for the high court to weigh in and provide much needed guidance and clarity on CEQA’s standards for analyzing large-scale planning actions at the plan or “program” level. (For those interested in a detailed summary of the litigation’s history and the Court of Appeal’s opinion, as well as my own thoughts on the CEQA issues involved, see my October 27, 2025 post here.) With judicial relief from the adverse appellate decision not forthcoming, perhaps the beleaguered City can pursue a different legal playbook in 2026 and seek and obtain a legislative solution removing the CEQA roadblock to its important planning efforts.

Continue Reading Supreme Court Denies City of San Diego’s Petition for Review and Depublication Request In CEQA Action Invalidating Supplemental EIR For City’s 30-Foot Coastal Height Limit Removal Initiative