S.F. Baykeeper v. Cal. State Lands Com. CA1/4

Background The relevant facts are largely undisputed. In 2012, Baykeeper filed a petition for writ of mandate challenging the commission’s approval of several

1 10-year mineral extraction leases that authorized Hanson to dredge mine sand from under the San Francisco Bay. Baykeeper’s petition argued, among other things, that the commission violated the common law public trust doctrine by authorizing this extraction by private companies. The trial court found in favor of the commission and rejected Baykeeper’s argument that the commission was required to conduct a public trust analysis before approving the sand mining leases.1 Baykeeper appealed. In Baykeeper I, a different panel of this court held that the commission’s “authority to approve private sand mining leases of public trust property carries with it an ‘affirmative duty to take the public trust into account . . . and to protect public trust uses whenever feasible’ ” and that the commission had not “fulfilled that duty in this case.” (Baykeeper I, supra, 242 Cal.App.4th at p. 234.) This court rejected the commission’s arguments that private sand mining is per se a public trust use of the bay and that the commission had…