The California State Water Resources Control Board issued a notice today that all water users diverting water in California under Water Rights Permits, Licenses, Stockpond Certificates and Registration for Livestock Stockpond, Small Domestic or Small Irrigation uses must submit their annual water use reporting for the 2016 calendar year by April 1, 2017. All such reports must be filed online via the Report Management System (RMS) located at https://rms.waterboards.ca.gov/ ...
The American Arbitration Association (“AAA”) recently revised its Construction Industry Arbitration Rules and Mediation Procedures. The revised rules became effective on July 1, 2015 and include a host of changes, large and small. Here is what you need to know: Increased Thresholds for Regular and Fast Track Proceedings (Rules R-1 and F-1) AAA provides different procedures for “regular track” and “fast track” proceedings ...
Late yesterday afternoon, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“DEP”) published on its website what it characterizes as a “rough draft” of its forthcoming emergency[1] rule (the “Draft Rule”), which is 79 pages in length. This Draft Rule comes nine days after the agency’s release of an Interpretive Rule implementing, in part, the new Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), a summary of which is available here ...
On February 3, 2015, House Bill 2574 (“HB 2574”) was introduced in the West Virginia Legislature. HB 2574 proposes to remedy the unintended consequences to businesses created by the passage of the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”) during the 2014 regular session of the Legislature immediately following the contamination of the Elk River from Freedom Industries, Inc ...
By the time you are reading this, the October 1 deadline to register all aboveground storage tanks (“ASTs”) in West Virginia has passed, and the world is still turning. If you have not yet registered your ASTs, it is still a good idea to register any tanks that qualify as ASTs as soon as you can. However, the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) is proceeding with implementation of the Aboveground Storage Tank Act, W. Va ...
On August 7, 2012, the United States Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit in Summit Petroleum Corp. v. United States EPA, et al., Case Nos. 09-4348/10-4572, dealt the United States Environmental Protection Agency ("EPA") a major setback in its efforts to aggregate multiple, often disperse, emitting units in the oil and natural gas industry as a single stationary source - thus subjecting them to more stringent controls under the Clean Air Act ("CAA") ...
On August 1, 2016, the legislative rule promulgated to implement the Aboveground Storage Tank Act became effective. The Rule is 63 pages long and contains detailed requirements for registering, designing, installing, operating, maintaining and closing tanks subject to the AST Act. The following is a handy reference list of the more significant compliance deadlines established in the Rule ...
In the latest development relating to West Virginia’s new aboveground storage tank (“AST”) legislation, yesterday afternoon the West Virginia Department of Environmental Protection (“WVDEP”) filed with the West Virginia Secretary of State its finalized Interpretive Rule outlining mechanisms for compliance with the imminent deadlines under the Aboveground Storage Tank Act (the “AST Act”), W. Va. Code §§ 22-30-1 et seq ...
The U.S. General Services Administration recently added Green Globes as an additional third-party green building certification system for federal government construction projects. With this addition, many are now asking about the difference between Green Globes and LEED. Green Globes has emerged, in some parts of the U.S., as a rival building option to the more well-known Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (“LEED”) system ...
What is a Mechanic’s Lien? In South Carolina, construction liens, called mechanic’s liens, are automatically created by statute to protect anyone “to whom a debt is due for labor performed or furnished or for materials furnished and actually used in the erection, alteration, or repair of a building or structure upon real estate or the boring and equipping of wells.” S.C. Code Ann. § 29-5-10 ...
Everyone likes pie of some sort, especially around the holidays. For those working in the construction industry, the rapidly developing energy sector appears to be an ever-expanding “Job Pie” for contractors designing, managing, supplying, engineering, clearing and erecting projects for participants in the energy sector. For clues on how to follow the pie crumbs to real construction jobs, I turned to Melvin Stroble of Black & Veatch. Here is a slice of the information Mr ...
Imagine you are a materialman, selling indoor carpet to the contractors. You are approached by a West Virginia developer that wants you to supply carpet and flooring for several houses in a new development. The contract represents $50,000 in new business for your company – and you hope it marks the establishment of a productive relationship with the developer ...
With the spotlight recently cast upon it by the burgeoning Marcellus and other shale reserve developments, the oil and gas (“O&G”) industry has found itself increasingly the object of regulatory scrutiny. While the majority of commentary and new regulation has focused on the O&G industry’s fracking activities, the heightened regulatory attention has led to new levels of exposure in areas which the industry has traditionally not had extensive entanglement ...
2016 was the driest year in South Africa since rainfall records began in 1904‚ with the current drought predicted to continue well into 2017. Climate variables resulting in such devastating droughts are giving rise to increased competition for dwindling water resources in parts of South Africa. When water is critical to the ongoing operation of a business, it is important to establish precisely what right a business has to water and how to protect this right ...
ALRUD Real Estate practice Specialists, Andrey Zharskiy, ALRUD Partner, Stanislav Veselov, ALRUD Senior Associate, Galina Kulikova and Ksenia Bondarenko, ALRUD Attorneys, prepared an Article for the Newsletter of the Real Estate Section of the International Bar Association Legal Practice Division. The article, “Don’t be Trapped in Lease Agreements” covers main pitfalls that tenants in Russia may face while terminating a commercial real estate lease agreement ...
The Trump Administration has signaled its intent to roll back the scope of federal jurisdiction under the Clean Water Act in an Executive Order issued on February 28. The Executive Order directs U.S. EPA and the Corps of Engineers to consider rescinding or revising the "Clean Water Rule," which defines when the Clean Water Act applies to wetlands, ponds, intermittent streams, and other water bodies that have a "significant nexus" to "navigable waters ...
On February 21, 2017 the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in the case San Luis and Delta-Mendota Water Authority v. Haugrud found that water releases under California Fish and Game Code Section 5937 to keep fish in "good condition" creates an exception to the requirement to obtain a water right permit change from the State Water Resources Control Board (SWRCB). The Haugrud case addresses the Bureau of Reclamation (BOR) 2013 release of Trinity River water from the Lewiston Dam ...
During the Summer of 2013, we interviewed a group of owners who had completed IPD projects. Some owners had many IPD projects under their belts and others only one or two. But all were willing to share their experience and advice to help other owners. The transcripts were summarized in a white paper, still available on the Hanson Bridgett website, Integrated Project Delivery: The Owner’s Perspective ...
"The best things in life are free, the second best things are very, very expensive."—Coco Chanel Think of the most expensive cities in the world to live and places like London, New York and Paris come to mind. These cities epitomize the pinnacle of sophisticated and luxurious living, as romanticized all too often on the silver screen ...
The Board of Supervisors unanimously approved legislation on December 13, 2016 to provide developers of market rate projects with 24 or fewer dwellings with the option of contributing the required fees for off-site affordable housing (under the Inclusionary Housing Program) to a Small Sites Fund administered by the Mayor's Office of Housing and Community Development ("MOHCD") ...
A federal appeals court has rejected two challenges to the environmental review of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority's (Metro's) planned subway expansion in Downtown Los Angeles. The "Regional Connector" project, approved in 2012, will create a three-station, underground link through Downtown that will allow passengers to travel from points on the Metro Gold Line to the Blue and Expo lines without having to transfer trains ...
For about two years now, most renewable energy projects, particularly wind farm projects, have been financed using a so-called “hybrid” model, i.e. a combination of medium-term bank debt and long-term financing or private placements. The term “hybrid” is derived from the vocabulary of the Public-Private Partnerships industry, particularly projects involving an operational and maintenance component as part of a long-term concession ...
Legal Regime Regarding Real Estate The Serbian legal regime recognises private ownership of real estate, including land and buildings ...
This article is originaly published in IBA International Real Estate News. During 2015, one major acquisition of real estate property occurred in the Serbian real estate market. What happened was that a major international bank purchased over 8,000 sqm of space in two office buildings located in the Serbian capital, Belgrade. In fact, the buyer only acquired the parts of the buildings, while it already owned a significant part of this property ...
