Source: http://www.braypapers.com/legal-writing/decs-overlooked-authority-to-weigh-cumulative-impacts-nysba-the-new-york-environmental-lawyer-vol-21-no-2-spring-2001/
Timestamp: 2019-04-24 06:48:56+00:00

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It is striking that DEC, the Attorney General and citizen plaintiffs have ignored the strong mandate of this language. A few reported decisions have relied on § 3-0301 generally as furnishing DEC with broad overall “responsibility to carry out the environmental policy of this State,” as the Court of Appeals held in Flacke v. Freshwater Wetlands Appeals Board6 (sustaining DEC’s right to appeal from an adverse decision of the respondent agency). Again, in Sherwood Medical Co. v. New York State DEC,7 the court cited a related subsection of § 3- 0301 to show it “evident that the legislature intended to confer upon the Commissioner a broad based authority to implement the environmental policy of this State.” Otherwise, the silence is deafening.
The language regarding cumulative impacts was added, according to the State Executive Department, “[t]o confirm the authority of the Commissioner of Environmental Conservation to base determinations relating to licenses, orders, permits . . . or … rules, regulations, standards or criteria on the cumulative impact on fish, wildlife, water, land and air resources of the State of the project or matter involved, where such factors are not otherwise required to be considered.”8 The final clause of this sentence makes crystal clear that the added language was specifically intended to broaden the Department’s authority.
aftermath of the building of the Northway interstate divided highway between Albany and Canada along the eastern side of the six million-acre Adirondack State Park, there was a boom of interest in second-home development in the Adirondack Park. One major proposed second home development, the 18,386 acre Ton-Da-Lay project in the Town of Altamont in Franklin County, would have had a significant impact on the forests, waters and mountains of the unique Adirondack Park. At the time few of the many towns and villages within the Adirondack Park had adopted zoning and planning laws and enactment of the State private land use plan for the Adirondack Park (Article 27 of the Executive Law) did not take effect until 1973. In fact, it is likely that the prospect of the State exercising some form of comprehensive land use jurisdiction in the Park hastened developers to act before it took effect.
The only meaningful environmental review that most Adirondack second-home developments were subject to before 1973 was associated with permitting requirements under the Environmental Conservation Law for water supply and sewage treatment system permits under ECL §§ 15-1501 and 15-1503. These permits had essentially been subject to basic engineering standards and not to a broader review of a project’s impact on natural resources or, in special places like the Adirondack and Catskill Parks, the character of the parks. The Ton-Da-Lay developer’s application to DEC for a water supply and a sewage treatment system permit in 1971 marked a watershed in how DEC applied its permitting authority. Following intervention in the permitting proceeding by the Sierra Club, ably represented by attorneys Robert Kafin and the late Ed Needleman, the Department’s traditional narrow consideration of permit applications was expanded to a comprehensive look at the impact of the proposed second-home development on natural resources and the character of the region over a 20-day hearing. In August 1973 DEC denied the developer’s application based on the cumulative impact of the proposed project on the unique and special resources of the Adirondack Park – – the determination the Appellate Division circumscribed. This directly led to the legislation amending § 3-0301.
The Court of Appeals has mandated that agencies consider cumulative impacts, notably in Village of Westbury v. Department of Transportation’ 5 where an EIS was ordered for two related highway projects, and in Save the Pine Bush v. City of Albany 16 involving development of parcels in an environmentally sensitive pine barrens. But the courts’ insistence that the projects be part of, or dependent on, an overall long-range plan, has led them to reject suits to require weighing of cumulative impact. For example, in Long Island Pine Barrens Society v. Planning Bd. of Town of Brookhaven 17 the Court of Appeals ruled an EIS to examine the cumulative impact of development in Long Island’s central pine barrens, vital to the island’s water supply, was not required since there was no overall plan to safeguard the pine barrens – – the very reason why weighing the cumulative impacts of that development was so important. And in Stewart Park and Reserve Coalition v. New York State Dept. of Transportation 18 cumulative impacts again were not required to be looked at where, the courts ruled, the impacts of two related actions – – increasing flights at an airport and expanding its size – – were different.
While none of those decisions happened to involve DEC as a lead agency with primary responsibility under SEQRA, many significant environmental determinations of course do. And in those situations, ranging from air and water permits to wetland protection and land use in wilderness areas where DEC has chief responsibility, § 3-0301 imposes on the Department a clear mandate to consider the cumulative impacts on the state’s environment of the action or project before it. The 1975 amendment to this statute, enacted the same year as SEQRA and for largely the same purpose, is really in pari materia with SEQRA. It is a clear, resounding mandate to DEC requiring it to weigh projects’ cumulative impacts, and one that New York’s courts should enforce vigorously. Insuring that DEC shoulder this responsibility the Legislature gave it twenty-six years ago is long overdue.
Philip Weinberg, a former Environmental Law Section chair, is Professor of Law at St. John’s Law School. He writes the Practice Commentary for McKinney’s Environmental Conservation Law and has written several books and many articles on environmental law.
Paul M. Bray, a former bill drafter for the New York State Legislature, was involved in the drafting of both SEQRA and ECL § 3-0301’s 1975 amendment. He writes extensively on environmental subjects.
3 N.Y. L. 1975, ch. 532. SEQRA is ECL art.8.
4 76 A.D.2d 215, 430 N.Y.S.2d 440 (4th Dept. 1980).
5 76 A.D.2d at 222, 430 N.Y.S.2d at 447.
6 53 N.Y.2d 537, 541, 428 N.E.2d 380, 381, 444 N.Y.S.2d 48,49 (1981).
7 158 Misc.2d 281, 285, 599 N.Y.S.2d 382, 385 (Sup. Ct. Albany Co. 1993), reversed on other gds. 206 A.D.2d 819, 615 N.Y.S.2d 140 (3d Dept. 1994) (citing § 3.0301  [i] empowering DEC to prevent and abate air, land and water pollution).
8 Mem. Of State Exec. Dept., McK. 1975 Sess. Laws, 1668-69.
9 44 A.D.2d 430, 355 N.Y.S.2d 820 (3d Dept. 1974), app. dism. 35 N.Y.2d 789, 320 N.E.2d 870, 362 N.Y.S.2d 156 (1974), 36 N.Y.2d 856, 331 N.E.2d 695, 370 N.Y.S.2d 918 (1975), and 36 N.Y.2d 646, 332 N.E.2d 362, 371 N.Y.S.2d 1027 (1975).
10 Mem. of Approval, McK. 1975 Sess. Laws, 1756.
11 ECL § 8-0109 (2) (b), (d), (f).
12 6 NYCRR § 617.7 (c) (1) (xi).
13 Id. § 617.7 (c) (1) (xii).
14 Ud-I § 617.7 (c) (2).
15 75 N.Y.2d 62, 549 N.E.2d 1175, 550 N.Y.S.2d 604 (1989).
16 70 N.Y.2d 193, 512 N.E.2d 526, 518 N.Y.S.2d 943 (1987).
17 80 N.Y.2d 500, 606 N.E.2d 1373, 591 N.Y.S.2d 982 (1992).
18 157 A.D.2d 1, 555 N.Y.S.2d 481 (3d Dept. 1990), aff d mem. 77 N.Y.2d 970, 575 N.E.2d 391, 571 N.Y.S.2d 905 (1991).

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