A federal judge has awarded about $161,000 in attorney fees to an environmental conservation organization that refused to allow oil and gas drilling on a tract of land it sold to another environmental conservation organization.
In a 40-page opinion and order issued last August in Stockport Mountain v. Norcross Wildlife Foundation, U.S. District Judge James M. Munley of the Middle District of Pennsylvania granted defendant Norcross Wildlife Foundation’s motion for summary judgment, finding that the conservation easement on the land it sold to plaintiff Stockport Mountain Corp. unambiguously bans drilling.
