Opinion ID: 198660
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Relocation of SR-2 and the Possibility of Airport Expansion

Text: 30 Appellants first argue that the FHWA acted arbitrarily and capriciously by failing to consider the environmental effects of the relocation of SR-2 and the attendant expansion of Logan Airport that would result from the relocation of a Park & Fly parking lot and the transfer of the Robie Parcel to Massport. Appellants claim that the relocation of SR-2 is part of a chain of federal actions that connects with certain state actions and will eventually lead to airport expansion. 31 In June of 1991, MHD's predecessor agency entered into a Memorandum of Understanding with Massport, the City of Boston, and the owner of a Park & Fly parking lot on Bremen Street. Under the terms of the Memorandum, the parties would engage in a three-way land exchange under which: (1) MHD would receive the land currently occupied by the Park & Fly lot for use as a buffer park; (2) the Park & Fly lot would be relocated to a ten-acre site near Harborside Drive and Maverick Street; and (3) Massport would receive title to the Robie Parcel for possible expansion of the airport. This trilateral land exchange was explicitly made subject to the occurrence of numerous events, including the acquisition of funding and permits and the approval of several governmental bodies. The parties acknowledge that many of these events have still not yet occurred and may not occur for up to eight years, if at all. 32 Appellants argue that the administrative record contains repeated correspondence between MHD and the FHWA about the trilateral land exchange, the importance of the buffer area as an environmental mitigation on MHD's part, the value to Massport of relocating SR-2, and the connection between the acquisition of the buffer area and the transfer of the Robie Parcel to Massport. Based upon this, appellants argue that the FHWA should have analyzed the possible impacts of airport expansion before determining that no SEIS was needed. 33 Appellants claim that airport expansion is an impact of relocating SR-2. In DuBois, we stated that the discussion of impacts must include both direct and indirect effects of a proposed project. See DuBois, 102 F.3d at 1286. Appellants admit that airport expansion is not a direct effect of the relocation of SR-2, 4 but they argue that expansion is an indirect effect of that action. When attempting to delineate any such indirect effects, [t]he agency need not speculate about all conceivable impacts, but it must evaluate the reasonably foreseeable significant effects of the proposed action. Id. In addition to resolving the issue of whether airport expansion is an indirect effect of the relocation of SR-2, the question of whether airport expansion is reasonably foreseeable is also the crux of the inquiry into appellants' alternative argument that airport expansion should be considered as a cumulative impact of this chain of federal actions. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7. 34 We find, as the district court found, that appellants have not established that airport expansion is reasonably foreseeable, as courts have defined that term in this context. The Second Circuit opinion in Village of Grand View v. Skinner, 947 F.2d 651 (2d Cir. 1991), is illustrative of how the term reasonably foreseeable has been interpreted. In that case, the plaintiffs argued that the expansion in capacity of a highway, considered in conjunction with possible developments in a highway corridor, would ultimately require a second span of a bridge fed by the highway. Calling the plans for a second span speculative and contingent, the Second Circuit upheld the FHWA's failure to explicitly address the possible bridge expansion as a cumulative impact of the project change and the possible corridor developments. See id. at 660. The court noted that any bridge construction must be preceded by as much as ten years of design studies and project development studies that include consideration of environmental issues. See id. at 659. The court also stated that the bridge expansion was only one of a number of proposed alternatives and was therefore neither imminent nor inevitable. Id. 35 We agree with the district court's view that the present case is analogous to Grand View. Any possible airport expansion is contingent on several events that may or may not occur over an eight-year span. These include the acquisition of permits, the arrangement of funding, the drafting of expansion plans, and other contingencies that must occur before even the trilateral land exchange can occur. These contingencies render any possibility of airport expansion speculative and, like the bridge expansion in Grand View, neither imminent nor inevitable. Therefore, we find that airport expansion is not reasonably foreseeable, as that term has been defined in this context. Thus, we cannot fault the FHWA for failing to explicitly address airport expansion as a cumulative impact of the relocation of SR-2 and other developments. Nor do we find that the FHWA acted arbitrarily or capriciously in failing to consider airport expansion as an indirect effect of the relocation of SR-2. The relocation of SR-2 certainly begins to create the possibility of airport expansion, but far too much must happen before airport expansion could occur for us to describe expansion as even an indirect effect of the project. 36 We find this result to be consonant with the purposes of NEPA's EIS requirement. One purpose of the EIS requirement is to 'provide decisionmakers with sufficiently detailed information to aid in determining whether to proceed with the action in light of its environmental consequences.' DuBois, 102 F.3d at 1287 (quoting Northwest Resource Info. Ctr., Inc. v. National Marine Fisheries Serv., 56 F.3d 1060, 1064 (9th Cir. 1995)). The EIS requirement ensures that the agency, in reaching its decision, will have available, and will carefully consider, detailed information concerning significant environmental impacts. Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U.S. 332, 349 (1989). As pointed out by appellees, there is no fit between the effects of airport expansion that appellants wish to be studied and the decision to be made by the FHWA. It would be futile to require the FHWA to prepare an SEIS studying the environmental impacts of airport expansion when the FHWA is not the entity with either the authority or expertise to implement such expansion. If and when Massport acquires title to the Robie Parcel and seeks to expand the airport or otherwise change the manner in which the parcel is used, that proposal will be subject to the requirements of NEPA as well. If all of the necessary contingencies occur and Massport eventually seeks to expand the airport, the FAA will be the federal agency required to conduct an environmental review under NEPA, so there is no reason or need for the FHWA to consider the effects of airport expansion at this time. Accordingly, we do not find that the FHWA acted arbitrarily or capriciously in failing to consider them. 37