Community Members for Environmental Justice v. City of Minneapolis

Two environmental groups filed a lawsuit in Minnesota district court challenging the City of Minneapolis’s approval of an Alternative Urban Areawide Review (AUAR) for redevelopment of the Upper Harbor Terminal on the west bank of the Mississippi River. (An AUAR is “an accepted alternative form of environmental review for certain kinds of projects.”) The plaintiffs asserted that the City failed to comply with the Minnesota Environmental Policy Act. They sought an order enjoining the City from taking further action related to the project until the AUAR process was complete and an AUAR analysis was deemed adequate. The complaint’s allegations included that the final AUAR was inadequate because it failed to discuss the proposed project’s contributions to climate change, mitigation of climate change, or the impacts of climate change on the proposed project.