Opinion ID: 570498
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Significant New Circumstances or Information Relevant to Environmental Concerns.

Text: 59 NEPA requires the sponsoring agency to consider the impact on the environment resulting from the cumulative effect of the contemplated action and other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7 (1990). Further, as already noted, id. § 1502.9(c)(1)(ii) calls for an SEIS where [t]here are significant new circumstances or information relevant to environmental concerns and bearing on the proposed action or its impacts. 60 Plaintiffs-appellants argue that defendants-appellees failed to consider whether the improved Interchange design, taken in conjunction with reasonably foreseeable developments in the Tappan Zee Corridor, will ultimately require a second span of the Tappan Zee Bridge. They point to a statement in the Draft EA that the New York State Thruway Authority has a project under design to rehabilitate bridges and resurface the Thruway mainline through the limits of our project, and to the proposals in the 1987 Tappan Zee Corridor Study for a high occupancy vehicle lane and a second span of the Tappan Zee Bridge. They note in particular that the Study articulated a probable need for a new span by the year 2010, and indicated that the most practical location would be adjacent to the existing bridge. 61 Defendants-appellees respond that plans for a second span are speculative and contingent. We agree. The Tappan Zee Corridor Study states that any construction of a new bridge must be preceded by project development studies which include consideration of environmental issues, and by design studies. For a project of this magnitude, this process may take as long as ten years. It would obviously be impractical to coordinate consideration of the Interchange project, and other similarly limited proposals for Thruway improvements, with the massive studies required for a future second-bridge project. Whatever the eventual outcome, furthermore, a second span of the Tappan Zee Bridge is one of a number of alternatives projected in the Tappan Zee Corridor Study, and is clearly neither imminent nor inevitable. 62 We note that this situation is clearly distinct from that considered in Village of Westbury v. NYDOT, 75 N.Y.2d 62, 549 N.E.2d 1175, 550 N.Y.S.2d 604 (1989), upon which plaintiffs-appellants heavily rely. In that case, the New York Court of Appeals ruled that SEQRA 3 required coordinated consideration of the environmental effects of two projects: (1) the reconstruction of an interchange between the Meadowbrook State Parkway and the Northern State Parkway, and (2) the widening of the Northern State Parkway immediately east of that reconstruction. See id. at 65-69, 549 N.E.2d at 1176-78, 550 N.Y.S.2d at 604-07. Additional lanes to be added at the eastern end of the reconstructed interchange were not to be put into operation until the widening of the Northern State Parkway was completed, see id. at 66-67, 549 N.E.2d at 1176-77, 550 N.Y.S.2d at 605, and serve[d] no purpose independent of the widening project. Id. at 67, 549 N.E.2d at 1176, 550 N.Y.S.2d at 605. Obviously, this case offers no helpful precedent for the environmental evaluation of the redesign of an interchange and the possible future construction of a bridge span separated by seventeen miles and at least fifteen years. 63 Traffic volume along the entire Tappan Zee Corridor has been increasing markedly since 1982, and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Specifically, volume across the Tappan Zee Bridge is increasing. As the 1980 Tri-State Study indicates, both of these effects are occurring in the absence of the redesigned Interchange, and both will continue to occur whether or not the redesigned Interchange is constructed. Accordingly, given defendants-appellees' reasonable conclusion that the impact of the redesigned Interchange on regional traffic patterns will be minimal, they were justified in not explicitly addressing the cumulative impact of that redesign and essentially independent and unrelated developments upon the possible future addition of a span to the Tappan Zee Bridge.