Murray Feldman

Client Results

• Successfully defended in federal court, state court, and agency proceedings the environmental assessment and wetlands, water quality, lake protection, and other approvals for Idaho’s largest highway improvement project

• Represented a state government, regional water supply entity, and private landowners in several federal district court and appellate court lawsuits on endangered species listing, critical habitat, incidental take permitting, and biological opinion issues concerning the polar bear, ribbon seal, Steller sea lion, beluga whale, bearded seal, ringed seal, Moapa dace, Snake River salmon, and Alabama beach mouse

• Obtained the first-ever petitioned redesignation of critical habitat, for Snake River Chinook salmon, for Idaho’s all-time record gold-producing mine.

• Lead counsel in a federal court case on the environmental analyses and overflight effects considerations for military airspace designations and training on and above over 3.2 million acres of public and private land in southwestern Idaho, as chronicled in the book Desert Wings: Controversy in the Idaho Desert (N. Nokkentved, 2001).

• Lead counsel for landowners challenging the Department of Defense’s and Department of Transportation’s NEPA evaluation for military training activities in west Texas, which resulted in the first U.S. Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals ruling in over 20 years to set aside an agency’s environmental impact statement.

• Successfully represented a group of ranchers and landowners in obtaining the withdrawal of the U.S. Air Force’s application to the FAA to establish a low-level, high-speed military training route for German Air Force training in West Texas and New Mexico.

• Worked with a landowner and the Fish and Wildlife Service to permit the first-ever habitat conservation plan for the Great Lakes piping plover.

• Worked before Congress to amend the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act to allow the continued permitting and operation of four Idaho backcountry lodges that were to be removed under a federal court order.

• Represented clients in several groundwater contamination, remediation, and cost recovery cases.

• Represented clients at the administrative level before the FAA, Environmental Protection Agency, Idaho Department of Environmental Quality, Idaho Transportation Board, the Interior Board of Land Appeals, and the United States Forest Service.