Precedential Ruling - Appeal before the Third Circuit

In an appeal before the Third Circuit, John Gillespie and Katelyn McElmoyl successfully advocated on behalf of Chesterfield Township, a bucolic municipality in Burlington County with a rich history of farming and open-space preservation. The litigation was a small piece of the municipality’s multifaceted legal challenges opposing the installation of natural gas infrastructure by a nationally recognized energy company. On September 5, 2018, the court’s panel ruled that the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) erred and violated New Jersey’s Freshwater Wetlands Protection Act in issuing permits for a natural gas compressor station without providing project objectors with the opportunity to participate in hearings before an administrative law judge.  Parker McCay’s effective representation of our municipal client lead to a precedential ruling that will likely affect regulatory review and approval of future gas infrastructure projects across the state and around the country.  As for the municipality and its constituents, the DEP has been ordered, on remand, to evaluate and rule on the merits of objectors’ requests for an adjudicatory hearing on the environmental permit issuances and to hold the appropriate hearings as required by state and federal laws.