Environmental Impact Statements

The company backing a $750-million natural gas terminal in Long Beach Harbor filed a lawsuit Thursday seeking to revive its project after officials in that city terminated it last month. Sound Energy Solutions, a partnership of ConocoPhillips and Mitsubishi Corp., filed a writ of mandate in Los Angeles County Superior Court that seeks an order to compel the Long Beach Harbor Board of Commissioners to direct its staff to complete an environmental impact report on the project.

Long Beach residents opposed to expanding the city's burgeoning airport said Saturday that they hope a councilwoman's new compromise proposal can defuse a virulent debate over the airport's future.

A federal environmental report analyzing the effects of a proposed 500-megawatt hydroelectric plant near Lake Elsinore gave local officials insufficient information, the Board of Supervisors declared by vote Tuesday. The board urged the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, which prepared the document, to further investigate the 2,400-acre project's effect on transportation, water quality, views and recreation, including hang gliding in the Santa Ana Mountains.

The Los Angeles City Council decided Wednesday against requiring the builders of the massive Playa Vista housing project to write a supplemental environmental impact report. The vote came one day after a Superior Court judge threw out two lawsuits against the second phase of Playa Vista brought by the city of Santa Monica and environmental groups. It was victories on both counts for the project, which has been slowly rising for several years.

A study of a proposal to build a liquefied natural gas terminal at the Port of Long Beach falls short of answering some key questions, such as whether the terminal would be vulnerable to terrorists, prone to accidents or costly for local agencies, Long Beach city officials said Wednesday. Long Beach city leaders have said they will await a final environment impact report on the controversial proposal before deciding whether to approve it.

The saga of Playa Vista, one of the most debated and litigated developments in Los Angeles history, took another twist this week when an appellate court ruled that the city erred in approving a portion of the project's environmental review. The decision means that the city will have to rewrite part of the voluminous environmental impact report for the project, even though a large portion of it has already been built.

Los Angeles County and the cities of Inglewood and Culver City have sued the federal Department of Transportation and the Federal Aviation Administration, claiming that environmental studies completed for the city's modernization plan for Los Angeles International Airport are deficient. The suit, filed in the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals, argues that the $11-billion proposal understates the pollution that would result from increased air operations at LAX.

A U.S. inspector general has found that a federal fisheries official in California skipped several key internal reviews when his office concluded last year that pumping more water from the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta would not seriously hurt endangered salmon.

The Bush administration altered critical portions of a scientific analysis of the environmental impact of cattle grazing on public lands before announcing Thursday that it would relax regulations limiting grazing on those lands, according to scientists involved in the study.

The Long Beach City Council decided Wednesday to continue talks with the developer of a proposed liquefied natural gas terminal at the city's harbor, although none of the nine council members appears to decisively favor the plan. In the early morning vote, the council split 5-4, divided between those firmly opposed to the $450-million gas facility proposed by a Mitsubishi Corp. subsidiary and those who want to wait for an environmental review before taking a stand.