The Associated Press

NEW ORLEANS — A New Orleans judge has brought in a mediator to try to work out a settlement with hundreds of people who claim damage from the partial collapse of a hotel under construction nearly three years ago.

Plaintiffs say they were injured, a loved one killed, or their business damaged when upper stories of a planned Hard Rock Hotel collapsed on Oct. 12, 2019. The crash killed three workers, injured many others, damaged nearby property, and shut down part of six-lane Canal Street for more than a year. Ten months passed before all bodies were removed and eight more before two-way traffic returned on Canal Street.

There’s been little movement in the cases for about two years, and Civil District Judge Kern Reese has appointed John Perry Jr., of Baton Rouge, as special master to work out a settlement, WWL-TV reported.

“For our clients, it’s a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Mike Brandner Jr., who represents more than 40 injured construction workers.

Perry will negotiate with a committee of 13 plaintiffs’ attorneys and with the hotel’s developers and construction contractors.

“It may be easy to settle with some of the defendants and very difficult to settle with other of the defendants,” Perry told the station. “And we’re just going to have to get into it in a traditional negotiation to make that determination.”

Perry has already worked out settlements in some cases, the station reported.

Paul Thibodeaux, who represents 1031 Canal Development, said it has worked with Perry “to resolve multiple claims and looks forward to continuing that effort.”

The Orleans Parish District Attorney’s Office is investigating possible negligence charges but has not brought any. The U.S. Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued safety violations against the designer, prime contractor, and some subcontractors, but lead engineer James Heaslip is still appealing his case.

Perry sent a letter saying that if a settlement is approved, he will run a compensation program to distribute any money put up by the defendants’ insurance companies. He also asks plaintiffs’ attorneys to recommend that their clients participate in a compensation program, with a Sept. 28 deadline for attorneys’ consent to do so.

“Hopefully we’ll be able to put a program in place that’s acceptable to all participants in the very near future,” Perry said. “And at that point, we’ll be in a position to try to negotiate the claims with the defendants.”

Agreement to participate in the process would avoid long litigation but would require accepting Perry’s decision. His “determinations will be final,” according to a consent form shared by Perry. “There will be no appeal to any court or any other authority.”

Claimants can opt out of any settlement and continue in court.

“But if they have to take 100 depositions and hire 25 experts and start getting trial dates and working their way through the traditional process, this will take years,” Perry said. “And we’re trying to get this plane landed and give everyone an opportunity to resolve these claims efficiently and quickly.”

Reese has ordered 4 percent of all claims payments to cover litigation costs, mostly tied to storage of evidence recovered from the collapse site.

The post Mediator appointed for lawsuits tied to partial building collapse appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The Associated Press

HICKORY, N.C. – A North Carolina city is suing three companies over the collapse of decorative, 40-ton wooden arches along a pedestrian walkway in February.

The lawsuit was filed by the city of Hickory in Catawba County Superior Court on Wednesday, the Hickory Daily Record reported. It names Neill Grading & Construction Co., Mooresville-based subcontractor Dane Construction and Oregon-based arch manufacturer Western Wood Structures.

The city contends that the “could not and would not have occurred in the absence of negligence by one or more of the defendants.” An official of Neill Grading wasn’t immediately available for comment on Thursday.

Neill Grading hired Dane Construction to design, build and install the arches. Dane brought in Western Wood Structures for design and construction, according to the lawsuit. Western Wood Structures is based in Tualatin, but has an office in Simpsonville, South Carolina, according to the firm’s website.

The arches were the centerpiece of a pedestrian thoroughfare in downtown Hickory called City Walk. They cost about $750,000 and made up about 5 percent of the $14.3 million City Walk contract.

The collapse occurred on Feb. 18, more than six months after installation. Both a pedestrian bridge under the arches and an adjacent bridge for motor vehicles sustained damage.

There had been issues when the second arch was being installed last year after part of the wood had splintered, city officials said. It was repaired using a combination of adhesives, clamps and screws.

The post Oregon-based timber manufacturer named in lawsuit appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Portland Community College is suing architecture and engineering firms that performed work for the College Services Building on its Sylvania campus.

The school claims that and failed to adequately design the concrete floors of the $5.25 million building, which has floors that sag excessively. The floor defects led to damage in drywalls, wall partitions and doorjambs, the school claims.

PCC is demanding that the firms pay $2.4 million in damages.

“PCC takes its stewardship of public resources, including the management of bond dollars, very seriously,” said James Hill, communications specialist for PCC.

The three-story building, which was completed in 2006, was paid for with money from a $144 million bond measure approved by voters in 2000. The structure houses offices for services including transportation and public safety.

The lawsuit claims that Opsis broke a project agreement in which the firm vowed to provide competent and professional architectural services. The suit also accuses Group Mackenzie of negligence and failure to exercise the degree of skill ordinarily possessed by “reputable” engineers.

Both Opsis and Group Mackenzie declined to comment. However, James Meyer, a partner at Opsis, did say that all the parties involved were working toward a resolution.

“I would like (a resolution) tomorrow, but I think the process will take some time,” he said.

Under the state statute of repose, public works project owners have 10 years after construction is completed to submit a claim against the project’s architects or engineers. Similarly, owners have 10 years to submit a claim against the project’s general contractor.

However, unlike claims against general contractors, claims against architects and engineers on public works projects have a two-year “discovery period,” so claims must be submitted within two years after design defects are found. The validity of PCC’s lawsuit could be dependent on whether PCC can prove that it noticed the floors were sagging within the past two years.

“The fight is often about when the defect is discovered for claims against architects and engineers,” said Jill Schneider, a commercial litigation lawyer with . “The claim must be brought within two years of when the … defective design was first discovered or should have been discovered with reasonable care.

“Usually an owner is not tasked with the responsibility to do a full-bore investigation on a regular basis. That is the general standard – what PCC should have discovered rests entirely on the facts of the situation.”

The lengths of the discovery period and the statutes are products of legislative lobbying by architects, engineers and contractors to gain advantageous rules, Schneider said.

The reason why claims against architects and engineers have a two-year discovery period, which essentially reduces litigation risk by eight years for public works projects, is simple, said Cindy Robert, a lobbyist for the American Institute of Architects.

“Once you notice (the defects), you have to say something right away – and for design, that makes sense,” she said. “If there’s a problem with the design, there’s probably a problem with the construction, so you want to get on it right away.”

The project’s general contractor, , is not named in the lawsuit; however, it could be served later, Robert said, because the window is wider.

“Part of the problem of those who sue in this situation is they just cast a wide net and bring in whoever they can,” Robert said.

PCC declined to comment on this possibility.

The defendants’ lawyers must file a response to the lawsuit within 30 days, but the time frame for litigation isn’t set.

The post PCC sues architect and engineer of services building appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Contractors across the nation may soon be following an Oregon legal dispute.

The relatively complicated FountainCourt case began in 2007. The board of directors of the  last week voted to take action on the Washington County lawsuit, saying it could have serious implications for the construction industry.

“The key issue really for us is who has the burden of proof for determining which damages are covered by the contractor’s liability insurance and which damages are not covered, and the impact of shifting that determination from the insurance carrier,” said Mike Salsgiver, executive director for the Oregon-Columbia chapter. “These smaller contractors and subcontractors don’t have that kind of resources.”

According to an appellant’s brief filed by American Family Mutual Insurance Co., a group called the FountainCourt Homeowners Association sued its developer and general contractor for construction defects that resulted in water damage. The case went to trial in 2009, and the group won approximately $2.15 million. The jury ordered that $485,877 of that amount be paid by Sideco – a subcontractor.

In 2010, the FountainCourt Homeowners Association issued a writ of garnishment to Sideco’s insurance company, American Family, for the subcontractor’s portion. American Family, however, refused to pay the lump sum garnishment, claiming that Sideco’s policy did not cover all of the damages and that it was the subcontractor’s and/or FountainCourt’s obligation to determine what was covered.

The FountainCourt Homeowners Association then sued American Family, and the court ruled that the burden resided with the insurance company. Furthermore, the court found that if American Family could not determine what its policy covered and what it didn’t, then it was liable for the entire amount.

American Family appealed that decision in November.

Now AGC may ask the Washington County Circuit Court for permission to file an amicus brief protesting American Family’s appeal.

That’s a big process, and Jeremy Vermilyea, an AGC board member and a construction law attorney for , said it will likely cost the organization an amount in the range of six figures.

“The question in a nutshell is: ‘Who is in the better position to bear the risk of having to obtain a special verdict from a jury and make sure that those damages get allocated?’ ” Vermilyea said.

Vermilyea noted that there may have been a conflict of interest in the FountainCourt lawsuit because American Family represented Sideco in the legal proceedings. He said American Family could have requested to have damages itemized before the original verdict, but chose not to. He added that Sideco – like most contractors – likely would not have known to do so.

“The bottom line is that, from AGC’s point of view, we think that given the balance of dollars and sophistication and the fact that the carrier controls the defense … the carrier ought to bear the burden of addressing the allocation issue rather than forcing the contractor into that position,” Vermilyea said.

The attorney representing American Family Insurance, Todd Baran, said he was unable to speak about the case because of the company’s policy to not comment on pending litigation.

The 126-page brief Baran filed on behalf of American Family, however, posed some questions that illustrated the insurance company’s objections.

One point questioned the legality of requiring American Family to pay the full amount of a lawsuit even though the policy covered only a portion of the subcontractor’s work, especially because the jury issued a general, nonspecific verdict for less than the amount sought.

Another point questioned whether American Family should be held liable for damages that began before Sideco’s coverage began and continued beyond the policy’s expiration.

Vermilyea said the AGC had not yet hired a lawyer to head the amicus effort but that the deadline to submit the brief was Feb. 29. However, he said an extension of that deadline was likely, given the importance of the issue.

“My expectation would be that … regardless of the outcome, there will at least be a request that the (Oregon) Supreme Court take a look at it,” Vermilyea said.

The post AGC votes to act on Oregon construction lawsuit appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

To bond or not to bond? That is the question behind a class action lawsuit that Oregon tenants are bringing against a Northwest property management firm.

The lawsuit challenges Vancouver, Wash.-based ‘s practice of allegedly requiring tenants to purchase nonrefundable bonds in lieu of providing security deposits.

Portland-based filed the original complaint on behalf of the plaintiff, Alexcia Batiste, who lives on a Gresham property managed by Quantum. The Multnomah County Circuit Court recently decided that the lawsuit could proceed as a class action suit, and Steve Larson, the plaintiff’s attorney, said more than 2,000 people have been charged what his firm believes is an illegal fee.

“The law is supposed to be a mechanism for both sides to state their position,” Larson said of Oregon’s landlord-tenant law. “This bond is a nonrefundable premium and it doesn’t give the tenant an opportunity to dispute anything. All of a sudden the collection agency is coming after them for whatever amount the landlord is saying is (owed).”

The bond is a product offered by New Jersey-based . Instead of a large security deposit, the service allows tenants to pay a considerably smaller, nonrefundable premium as a guarantee on their performance of lease obligations. If damages occur, or rent payments are missed, SureDeposit pays the landlord and then pursues the tenant for the balance.

Joel Wilson of Portland-based y, the defendant’s attorney, said the bond is not a requirement, but rather an option offered to help tenants who are unable to afford a large, lump-sum security deposit.

“The bond is a significant benefit to many tenants who can pay a relatively small premium to the bonding company, and avoid having to go out of pocket for a much larger security deposit,” Wilson wrote in an email.

He said 95 percent of tenants given the option between a security deposit and the bond have opted for the latter. And because payment for the bond premium goes to a third party in exchange for a service – and is not a fee charged by the landlord – it is not a violation of the Oregon Residential Landlord Tenant Act, according to Wilson.

In 2009, changes to the act specifically outlined when and how landlords may charge tenants nonrefundable fees. Those situations include things like bounced checks, late rent payments and tampering with fire detectors.

Jim Straub, legislative director for the , said that before those changes took place, landlords could charge tenants for numerous things – such as not mowing their yards.

“It was that sting that motivated them to get out there and do it,” Straub said. “Some landlords abused that, so that was taken away from us. Very few landlords (abused it); but the few that did, abused it greatly.”

Straub, who also owns in Eugene, said he could see why a third-party bond would be attractive to a landlord because security deposits often don’t cover total costs of damages made by a tenant. For instance, Straub said, replacing carpet in a 1,100-square-foot house can cost as much as $3,500.

“There’s been more dispute in the last few years – as oil prices have risen, landlords have seen their replacement costs double, triple, quadruple,” Straub said. “And the amount that we can ask a tenant to pay moving in to cover that risk … we’re having to increase to cover our actual costs, or risks of actual costs down the road.”

Collecting money for damages at the end of a lease, especially during the recession, has also been exceedingly difficult. He said that if a collections agency has to pursue money on his company’s behalf, he doesn’t ever expect to see it again.

“You can’t squeeze blood out of a rock,” he said. “If they don’t have the money, they don’t have the money.”

According to one national collections agency, SureDeposit has proven to be an effective tool for tracking down lost dollars. ResidentCheck/ResidentCollect reported in June 2010 a 40 percent increase in collection results for files with a SureDeposit bond.

But Larson contends that the SureDeposit service unfairly unleashes collection agencies on tenants without giving them an opportunity to dispute claims.

Wilson argues the service is a valuable option for tenants unable to afford costly security deposits.

The next step in the case is to mail out notices to the class, which Larson said, should take place by Feb. 22. Those identified then have 90 days to drop out if they wish. Larson said both sides have requested a trial date of Aug. 27, 2012.

The post Class action lawsuit challenges security deposit bonds appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The $20 million Boeckman Road extension in Wilsonville has been sinking since it opened in 2008, and now the city may need to close the bridge for as long as a year while construction crews fix engineering flaws.

The city of Wilsonville in 2010 filed a lawsuit against the firm that led the project, Nebraska-based , after claiming the company was negligent. In September, the city settled for nearly $1 million, which officials hope will pay for design and construction work to fix the road extension this year.

A new study of the bridge is expected to come out next week, according to community development director Mike Bowers. The timeline for repairs is still uncertain, although he said the city will look to hire a design firm in the next 30 to 45 days.

“One thing we know for sure is we’ll have to close road for substantial period of time,” Bowers said.

The 400-foot bridge, which crosses Coffee Lake Creek Basin wetlands, is safe from settlement because it rests on pilings pounded into lower bedrock. But the ramps leading onto the bridge will continue to drop if the city doesn’t take action, according to Steve Adams, interim city engineer for Wilsonville.

“The ramp on the east side of the bridge is fairly steep now, and it will just keep getting steeper,” he said.

The city attempted to slow the sinking by reducing the speed limit on the bridge from 35 mph to 20 mph, but permanent fixes are necessary.

Portions of the east ramp have already dipped 14 inches in elevation and could continue to fall another 16 inches, according to preliminary studies conducted by Seattle-based . The city hired the firm to study the sinking ramps, which trace back to an engineer who misread soil compression data, Adams said.

Studies conducted prior to the initial road construction revealed that peat deposits in the area could lead to extensive soil compression, according to Adams. To mitigate that problem, crews stacked rock soil on top of the roadbed area before beginning construction so that geotechnical engineers could study how fast the soil consolidated over a period of several months.

Soon after the bridge opened, however, the steep incline where the bridge met the road raised red flags. In the lawsuit, the city alleged that the designs by HDR Engineering and subconsultant miscalculated the amount of soil compression that would occur.

The city initially sought $2.68 million from HDR for civil negligence. The engineering firm also filed a $250,000 counterclaim for unpaid design work, which was dropped in the $1 million settlement.

“Based on the estimates made by the engineering firms during the settlement, we believe ($1 million) will be sufficient for construction,” Bowers said. “And (we) hope the settlement funds will also include the design work.”

Initial construction costs were between $16 million and $17 million, and design work, environmental permitting and geotechnical work added $4 million to the price tag, according to Bowers.

The Boeckman Road extension was built to provide an east-west connection to roadways on either side of wetlands, but drivers will need to use alternate routes during construction. The repair work could take as long as a year, Bowers said, although the exact timeline will depend upon the length of the design process as well as the complexity of the plans.

The post Sinking bridge in Wilsonville to close for repairs appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

The city of Forest Grove is appealing a jury’s decision in September that found the city and two of its employees liable for “abuse of power,” and awarded David Hill Development $6.5 million in damages.

attorney Daniel Lerner, an associate who worked on the case, said his team is in the process of filing post-trial motions that are necessary before an appeal can be made to the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals. However, he said he couldn’t comment beyond that.

“We think that this sets a frightening precedent for every city in Oregon that you could be subject to this kind of a lawsuit loss for an alleged delay in the project,” city manager Michael Sykes said. “The city’s position is that we bent over backwards to help an inexperienced developer and that this judgment was completely wrong.”

The lawsuit, filed in 2008, alleged that the city of Forest Grove, public works director Robert Foster and project engineer Steve Wood delayed construction and added project costs for a 217-lot subdivision, The Parks at Forest Grove – all to benefit a neighboring property owner.

“I would hope that other municipalities and agencies across Oregon and our country take notice of this case and these types of cases and remember that public servants need to follow the law,” said attorney Steve Morasch, the lead attorney on the team that represented David Hill Development in the case. “They can’t play favorites.”

According to the complaint filed in federal court, the city of Forest Grove had determined as early as 2005 that the developer’s sewer routing met all code requirements, but officials instead told the developer that significant changes – costing hundreds of thousands of dollars – were needed.

Emails among city officials acknowledge that David Hill Development’s original sewer plan complied with all codes. Terry Keyes, then the development services manager for Clean Water Services, stated in a 2005 email to Wood that the developer’s proposed route appeared “well thought out and should minimize construction costs and easement issues.”

But according to Morasch, the city failed to approve his client’s sewer route for months as it attempted to help a neighboring property owner connect to the city’s sewer system. Then, after backing down on the route changes, the city said the proposed access easement wasn’t wide enough, which required the developer to pay $400,000 for construction costs and a dedicated right-of-way easement.

The jury found the city accountable of an “abuse of power” that “shocks the conscience,” and took the unusual step of returning the verdict with a note attached; it said that it believed other city officials were at fault as well.

The damages were calculated based on the developer’s 2006 contract to sell the entire project for nearly $28 million. Construction delays caused that transaction to fall through, and then the buyer noticed the market declining. David Hill Development ended up selling fewer lots at a lesser price, with a total market-related loss of approximately $3.7 million.

Other damages were for interest that accrued on the developer’s construction loans during the delay, as well as additional construction costs not part of the original conditions of approval.

“We handle a fair amount of these types of claims, and I’ve never heard of a larger (settlement) in Oregon,” Morasch said.

The city’s insurance policy will cover only $5 million of the damages. The city probably will be responsible for some share of the remaining $1.5 million, although Sykes said the finances are still being sorted out.

“We don’t think the city did anything wrong – everything was clearly spelled out in the development agreement,” Sykes said. “It just means that cities might have to have higher insurance limits.”

The post Forest Grove to appeal $6.5M ‘abuse of power’ decision appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

A Portland-based environmental group is seeking to stop exploratory drilling on forest lands near Mount St. Helens as a Canadian company prepares to probe for copper, gold, and other minerals.

Ascot Resources of Vancouver, British Columbia, plans to drill on Gifford Pinchot National Forest lands in Southwest Washington beginning in early August. Ascot acquired mineral rights on the land in 2010.

Ascot would drill 30 holes from 12 drilling pads for about 40,000 feet. The company has also applied to the Bureau of Land Management for a prospecting permit on adjacent lands. John Toffan, president of Ascot, said that third-party environmental assessments are being conducted on the site by URS Corporation out of Spokane, Wash.

“If the resource is as big as we think, it will provide a tremendous amount of jobs if our project goes forward,” Toffan said. “We’ll probably start with capital expenses of about one billion dollars, and we will probably hire 1,000 workers directly, which will create another 3,000 jobs as things go.”

The environmental group Gifford Pinchot Task Force sued in federal court in Tacoma, Wash., last week to get the U.S. Forest Service to conduct environmental reviews and allow time for public comment.

Toffan said that Ascot has been in full compliance with the U.S. Forest Service and has not violated any environmental standards that would substantiate the lawsuit. “We think it’s frivolous, really,” Toffan said. “There’s no basis in fact.”

The task force, however, claimed the project could pollute drinking water and endanger wildlife habitats, as well as cause interferences with hunting, fishing and other recreational activities that draw people to Skamania County every year.

The post Southwest Washington mining operation faces lawsuit appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Parr Financial, the owner of a building that houses Nordstrom in downtown Portland, has filed a lawsuit against TMT Development, the firm behind the stalled Park Avenue West office tower project.

The suit involves a 277-foot tower crane on the Park Avenue West site, which sits one block west of Nordstrom. The boom of the crane is frequently blown by the wind to a position that is directly over the Nordstrom building.

The case filed with Multnomah County Circuit Court on July 7 claims the crane had been frequently blows by the wind to a position directly over the building Nordstrom is in. In such a position, the lawsuit claims, the crane is a nuisance and is trespassing on the neighboring property, causing the owner of the Nordstrom property “a substantial and unreasonable interference with its exclusive possession of that property.”

Construction on the Park Avenue West project was halted in 2009 due to financing issues. Vanessa Sturgeon, president of TMT Development, told the Daily Journal of Commerce in 2010 that the company decided to leave the crane at the site until construction resumes instead of taking it down and reassembling it again.

During the same interview, Sturgeon said the crane boom isn’t secured so that it can sway with the wind, which reduces the chance of an accident. The company sends a crane operator to the site frequently to move the boom back over the construction site, as well as to inspect the crane, Sturgeon said. Sturgeon did not return calls seeking comment on the lawsuit.

Gaytor Rasmussen, a Washington crane inspector who has also operated and erected tower cranes, agreed that leaving the crane up was a good move. It would cost roughly $40,000 to take the crane down, and another $40,000 to erect it again, he said.

“Safety wise, you’d be at more of a risk to dismantle the crane and erect it again opposed to just leave it up,” he said.

Rasmussen added that the issue of invading airspace on another person’s property does come up in the industry, and often ends with money exchanging hands. But to whether it’s illegal to encroach on a neighbors’ airspace, he said the legal waters are murky.

Most legal cases that involve airspace rights are centered on whether aircraft can enter the space above buildings. In the 1946 case United States v. Causby, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that navigable airspace was public highway and within public domain.

But the ruling went on to say that “if the landowner is to have full enjoyment of the land, he must have exclusive control of the immediate reaches of the enveloping atmosphere.”

Ross Caron, a spokesman with the city of Portland Bureau of Development Services, said the bureau has no authority to regulate cranes. The state, he said, has a department that makes sure cranes are manufactured to certain standards, but there isn’t an authority that oversees how cranes are used or what they do.

“It’s usually dealt with as a civil issue,” he said.

BDS has been working with TMT Development since the project first stalled to make sure the project can continue legally once financing is in place and construction is ready to start again. When that happens, Caron said, the bureau will conduct a rigorous review process to make sure the site is safe for construction to continue.

The Oregon Occupational Safety and Health Division has a six-page guideline of requirements for cranes and crane operators, but the document doesn’t address the issue of cranes and their surrounding areas.

David P. Morrison, an attorney with Cosgrave Vergeer Kester, which is representing Parr Financial, confirmed that the case was filed but said he would not give additional comments at this time.

The post Nordstrom landlord sues Park Avenue West developer over site crane appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.

Oregon’s Clatsop County is taking legal action against one of its own cities, Astoria, over whether the county or the city owns land in a nearby city, Warrenton.

The county board of commissioners on Wednesday voted to file a suit in Clatsop County Circuit Court to press its claim that the county owns two lots in Warrenton that it deeded to the city of Astoria in 1958. The county needs the lots, which total about 46 acres, in order to meet federal wetland mitigation requirements for the development of a business park nearby.

The county deeded the property to Astoria so that the city could use the property as a scenic backdrop to a cemetery located right next to the properties that the city owns. But according to the 1958 clause, “the above described property to be used for Cemetery Purposes, and if not so used to revert to Clatsop County and the city to reconvey accordingly.”

Clatsop County officials are claiming that because Astoria did not dedicate the land for cemetery use, the city did not meet the deed requirements, and the property should be given back to the county. The process is known as a revisionary clause, and Clatsop County has won a similar suit against the city of Seaside in 2009.

The county needs the land to fulfill federal wetland mitigation requirements due to the development of the nearby North Coast Business Park. As part of the business park, the county is widening a road that will require development that impacts nearby wetlands. Under federal law, the county must conduct 10 acres of off-site wetland mitigation for every acre that is developed. For this project, the county would need 43 acres of mitigation.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Oregon Department of State Lands, the two groups that regulate wetland protection in the state, have ruled out all of the other county-owned lands for potential mitigation sites. Without these parcels, the county would need to purchase wetland properties to meet the federal regulations.

Once the suit is filed, the case will be heard by a judge within the county court system. The ruling could then be appealed as far as to the Oregon Court of Appeals, which was the case in the 2009 suit against Seaside.

The post Clatsop County takes legal action against Astoria appeared first on Daily Journal of Commerce.