Protect Our Water v. County of Merced

When practicing appellate law, there are at least three immutable rules: first, take great care to prepare a complete record; second, if it is not in the record, it did not happen; and third, when in doubt, refer back to rules one and two. In this case, the parties totally missed the appellate mark by failing to provide an adequate record for review.

Appellants Protect Our Water, San Joaquin Raptor Rescue Center, and the Merced River Valley Association (collectively POW) filed a petition for writ of mandate. POW challenged the approval by respondent County of Merced (County) of a massive project involving the mining of 15 million tons of aggregate reserves on 456 acres near the Merced River by respondent Calaveras Materials Incorporated (CMI). The trial court denied POW’s writ petition. POW appeals, claiming a number of California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA) violations.

The administrative record is large—14 binder-sized volumes. It reads as if its preparers randomly pulled out documents and threw them into binders, failing to organize them either chronologically or by subject matter. Key findings required under CEQA are impossible to find—let alone sufficient to…