Opinion ID: 3038214
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Actions (other than unconnected sin-

Text: gle actions) which may be:
that they are closely related and therefore should be discussed in the same impact statement. Actions are connected if they:
actions which may require envi- ronmental impact statements.
unless other actions are taken previously or simultaneously.
larger action and depend on the larger action for their justifica- tion.
viewed with other proposed actions have cumulatively significant impacts and should therefore be GREAT BASIN MINE WATCH v. HANKINS 8641 discussed in the same impact state- ment.
viewed with other reasonably fore- seeable or proposed agency actions, have similarities that provide a basis for evaluating their environ- mental consequences together, such as common timing or geography. An agency may wish to analyze these actions in the same impact statement. It should do so when the best way to assess adequately the combined impacts of similar actions or reasonable alternatives to such actions is to treat them in a single impact statement. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25 (citations omitted). The purpose of this requirement is “to prevent an agency from dividing a project into multiple ‘actions,’ each of which individually has an insignificant environmental impact, but which collectively have a substantial impact.” Wetlands Action Network, 222 F.3d at 1118 (internal quotations and citation omitted). Where, as here, the agency declines to produce a single EIS, “plaintiffs must show that the [agency] was arbitrary and capricious in failing to prepare one comprehensive environmental statement.” Native Ecosystems Council, 304 F.3d at 894, citing Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 412 (1976). [14] We apply an “independent utility” test to determine whether multiple actions are so connected as to mandate consideration in a single EIS. The crux of the test is whether “each of two projects would have taken place with or without the other and thus had ‘independent utility.’ ” Wetlands 8642 GREAT BASIN MINE WATCH v. HANKINS Action Network, 222 F.3d at 1118 (internal quotations and citation omitted). When one of the projects might reasonably have been completed without the existence of the other, the two projects have independent utility and are not “connected” for NEPA’s purposes. Native Ecosystems Council, 304 F.3d at 894. In Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Blackwood, 161 F.3d 1208, 1215 (9th Cir. 1998), we held that five potential logging projects in the same watershed were cumulative and had to be evaluated in a single EIS, where they were reasonably foreseeable and “developed as part of a comprehensive forest recovery strategy.” Similarly, in Thomas v. Peterson, 753 F.2d 754, 758 (9th Cir. 1985), we held that a logging project and a road to facilitate the logging had to be considered in a single EIS because “the timber sales [could not] proceed without the road, and the road would not be built but for the contemplated timber sales.” We have held that less-interconnected projects need not be evaluated in the same EIS. In Wetlands, we held that a joint EIS was not required where details and planning for subsequent phases of development had not been completed or authorized. “Finding that the Corps was required . . . to have analyzed the environmental impacts of the three phases in a single EA or EIS would require the government to do the impractical.” 222 F.3d at 1119. In Sylvester v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 884 F.2d 394, 400 (9th Cir. 1989), we declined to require a single EIS covering both a resort complex and a golf course, where only the golf course (built on wetlands) implicated federal law. “[E]ach could exist without the other, although each would benefit from the other’s presence.” Id. Great Basin points to several statements in the EISs to argue that Leeville and the Amended South Project are connected actions. “The Leeville Project ore deposits consist of refractory material that would be hauled directly to processing GREAT BASIN MINE WATCH v. HANKINS 8643 facilities located at the Refractory Ore Treatment Plant at Newmont’s South Operations Area.” In addition, “[t]ailing material that would result from processing of the Leeville Project ore would be managed at Newmont’s tailing disposal facility in the South Operations Area.” The Leeville draft EIS also contained a diagram showing that all ore from Leeville would be processed at the South Operations Area. Great Basin does not argue that the Amended South Project is dependent on Leeville. [15] While it is true that the ore from Leeville will be processed at the South Operations Area, there is no indication that the ore will be processed at the Amended South Project, the new facilities at issue in this litigation. In fact, the Leeville draft EIS specifically states that “[t]ailing from processing Leeville ore at South Operations Area would be deposited in existing tailing disposal facilities. Modification or expansion of the tailing disposal facility beyond the current authorized capacity would not be required to process ore from the Leeville Project.” Ore from Leeville is to be processed at Mill 6, which was permitted by the Bureau to existing capacity in 1993. Leeville and the Amended South Project seem to have very little connectedness. [16] “Mindful of the deference that agencies are to be accorded in scientific matters, in these circumstances we decline at this time to require the BLM to produce a single document.” Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 387 F.3d 989, 1000 (9th Cir. 2004). In this situation, we go even further: there is no factual support for Great Basin’s argument that Leeville and the Amended South Project are interdependent such that they must be evaluated in a joint environmental impact statement. It follows that the Bureau’s failure to do so was not arbitrary or capricious.1 1 In arguing that the Bureau should have evaluated Leeville and Amended South Project in a single EIS, the separate concurrence and dissent concludes that “[i]t would be not merely unwise, but also entirely 8644 GREAT BASIN MINE WATCH v. HANKINS