ANGELES CHAPTER CONSERVATION LEGAL COMMITTEE VICE CHAIR PREPARES LAW STUDENTS TO PRESERVE AND PROTECT THE PLANET

PHOTO BY DAVE BROWN

On January 30, 2009, Prof. Dan Selmi trained 19 law students at Loyola Law School in the basics of CEQA, the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA). CEQA, like its big brother, the federal National Environmental Policy Act, requires that agencies contemplating a project that might substantially affect the environment prepare a report on the potential environmental effects of that project, so that decision makers will understand environmental effects before they approve or deny the project.

CEQA is a very flexible tool that can be used effectively by citizens to force agencies to consider environmental issues such as lack of water, global warming, disappearing wetlands, urban sprawl, etc. But citizens' groups often don't understand the law well enough to use it effectively. Comments submitted by the public during public review of environmental impact documents must be based on factual information placed into the administrative record. In order to have standing to sue the agency after it approves the document, the citizen's group must have participated in the administrative review process, and the exact issue that becomes the basis of the lawsuit must have been raised during the review.

In order to help Angeles Chapter conservation task forces and other citizens' groups fighting bad projects, the Angeles Chapter's Conservation Legal Committee, in conjunction with the Loyola Law School Environmental Law Society, assigned 17 law students who had participated in the CEQA training to six task forces that were involved in the CEQA process. The Angeles Chapter, through a conservation grant, provided the students with copies of the Planning and Conservation League's Community Guide to CEQA (http://www.pclfoundation.org/events/ceqaguide.html) , an excellent and easy-to-understand guide to participating in the CEQA process.

Four law students were assigned to help the Montebello Hills Task Force, which is working to preserve the last remaining open space in Montebello Hills as an open-space park. The Environmental Impact Report is about to be issued for that project.

Two law students were assigned to help fight the expansion of the Athens Material Recovery Facility, a waste-processing facility in Sun Valley that has applied for a permit allowing it to triple in size. It is located in an environmental justice zone, and is another egregious example of a waste-related facility being foisted on a community that doesn't have the resources to effectively tell the City enough - put this facility somewhere else when it has already hosted more than its fair share of facilities that no one else wants.

Three law students are helping the San Gabriel Valley Task Force comment on the EIR for the Pacific Heights proposed housing development. Three students are commenting on the City's plan to run a truck driving school on top of the decommissioned Lopez Canyon Landfill, which the City had originally pledged to preserve as open space. Three students are helping comment on the EIR for Playa Vista Phase II, which has recently been reissued, following the decision last year by the Court of Appeal that the previous version was inadequate.

This is a pilot program that appears to be going well. The task forces are getting law students who know the basics of CEQA, and have the legal skills to research issues that arise. The law students are getting exposure to real-world environmental problems, and to activists who are passionate about fixing those problems.

The Angeles Chapter Conservation Legal Committee is made up of lawyers, paralegals and law students, and its mission is to provide Chapter activists with pro-bono legal resources.