Summary:  Florida state and federal negotiators are reportedly on the verge of a settlement resolving two lawsuits and establishing approximately $890 million worth of new Everglades restoration projects. The price tag is less than the $1.5 billion proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency, but the agreement would end a standoff that has lasted already for decades.

Earthjustice attorney David Guest acknowledged concern that the deal may fall short of the Everglades’ needs but recognized the significance of resolving a 24-year-old lawsuit. “It’s absolutely going to be progress, there is no doubt about that,” he said.

  Full Article:  http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/05/05/2785647/settlement-close-in-glades-cleanup.html"

  Summary:  Earthjustice filed a brief in support of the legal efforts by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette and Observer-Reporter of Washington to reveal the details of a court-sealed settlement between a family of previously-vocal fracking activists and a group of shale gas development companies.

"The sealed court records in this case are part of a widespread pattern of industry secrecy," said Earthjustice attorney Matthew Gerhart. "In the face of a nationwide gas drilling boom and the troubling reports of related health impacts, we cannot afford to let this pattern continue."

The Hallowich family, which agreed to the settlement in August 2011, had previously said that the fracking site adjacent to their farm caused them to have “burning eyes, sore throats, headaches and earaches.”

  Full Article:  http://shale.sites.post-gazette.com/index.php/news/archives/24508-group-joins-pg-effort-to-unseal-hallowich-settlement"

  Summary:  The town of Bethel, NY, home of 1969’s Woodstock festival, voted unanimously to ban hydraulic fracturing, citing the potential for harm to open land, clean air and drinking water.

Though similar town laws have been upheld in two other New York lawsuits, fracking coalitions have threatened additional legal action. In anticipation of this, Bethel also voted to retain Earthjustice attorney Deborah Goldberg, “in the event the town requires representation.”

  Full Article:  http://www.recordonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20120427/NEWS/204270355"

  Summary:  A new proposal would make Boardman, a small port town in Oregon, the hub of an export facility to send millions of tons of coal per year, mined from the Powder River Basin in Montana and Wyoming, to Asia.

The increased rail traffic from the plan threatens both air quality in the Northwest and a number of bird refuges and salmon habitats. Increased greenhouse gas, ozone, particulate matter and mercury emissions from the exported coal could also reach the West Coast.

Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman spoke to the proposal’s global significance: “For us, the real question for the region is not do we or don’t we build in Boardman, but whether we become the coal exporting hub of North America.”

  Full Article:  http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/19/us/boardman-ore-considers-a-future-in-coal.html"