I don’t know of anyone who looks forward to reading 61-page single-spaced opinions. I know I sure don’t. But that’s the nature of the beast in decisions after a bench trial by trial courts, which are tasked with processing the facts and applying the law after hearing days, weeks, or months of evidence and argument. And when a long opinion is presented straightforwardly and the detail provided is essential to the decision, the pain is considerably lessened.
Such is the case with the opinion of the Court of Federal Claims in Arkansas Fish and Game Comm’n v. United States, No. 05-381L (July 1, 2009).
The Arkansas Game & Fish Commission (“Commission”) owns approximately 23,000 acres of land along the Black River in northeastern Arkansas that it manages as the Dave Donaldson Black River Wildlife Management Area (“Management Area”). The Commission in essence claims that during the years 1993-2000 the Corps of Engineers deviated from an operating plan for the Clearwater Dam upriver in southeastern Missouri, that these deviations caused greater amounts of water to flow down the Black River during the spring and summer growing seasons, that the increased water flows inundated the Wildlife Management Area for longer periods of time during the growing seasons, and that the sustained flooding and saturated ground during the growing seasons severely damaged the root systems of the oak species prevalent in the Management Area, killing many trees. The government does not deny that the deviations occurred, but it contests any liability, arguing that the harm to timber was attributable to different and intervening causes, among other things.
Slip op. at 2.
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