United States Tenth Circuit

In an action under the Endangered Species Act concerning whether the Bureau of Reclamation had discretion to reallocate water from agricultural and municipal contract users to maintain stream flows for the benefit of the Rio Grande Silvery Minnow, the appeal is dismissed and the case is remanded with instructions to dismiss the complaint where the Fish and Wildlife Service's issuance of a new biological opinion mooted plaintiffs' prayer for both injunctive and declaratory relief.

Appellate Information

• Decided 04/21/2010
• Published 04/21/2010

Judges

• HOLMES, Circuit Judge., Before HENRY, Chief Judge, BALDOCK and HOLMES, Circuit Judges.

Court

• United States Tenth Circuit

Counsel

• For Appellant:
  
• Virginia S. Albrecht and Karma B. Brown, Hunton & Williams, LLP, Washington, D.C.; Kathy Robb, Hunton & Williams, LLP, New York, NY; W. Patrick Schiffer, Chief Counsel, Arizona Department of Water Resources, and Gregg A. Houtz, Deputy Counsel, Arizona Department of Water Resources, Phoenix, AZ, as Amici Curiae in support of Appellants.


• For Appellees:
  
• Robert J. Lundman, U.S. Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division (Andrew C. Mergen and Ellen J. Durkee, U.S. Department of Justice, Environment & Natural Resources Division; Sue Ellen Wooldridge, Assistant Attorney General, with him on the brief(s)), Washington, D.C., for Defendants-Appellants., Frances C. Bassett, Assistant Attorney General, State of New Mexico (Patricia A. Madrid, Attorney General, State of New Mexico; Stephen R. Farris and Karen L. Reed, Assistant Attorneys General, State of New Mexico; Tanya Trujillo, Amy Haas, and Josh Mann, Special Assistant Attorneys General, Office of the State Engineer and the New Mexico Interstate Stream Commission, with her on the brief(s)), Santa Fe, NM, for the Defendant-Intervenor-Appellant State of New Mexico., Charles T. DuMars (Christina J. Bruff, David Seeley, and Stephen Curtice with him on the brief(s)), Law & Resource Planning Associates, P.C., Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant-Intervenor-Appellant Middle Rio Grande Conservancy District., Alletta Belin, Belin & Sugarman, Santa Fe, NM (Laurence (“Laird”) J. Lucas, Advocates for the West, Boise, ID, with her on the brief), for Plaintiffs-Appellees., Maria O'Brien (Adam H. Greenwood with her on the brief), Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority, Albuquerque, NM, for Defendant-Intervenor-Appellee Albuquerque-Bernalillo County Water Utility Authority.