Opinion ID: 1191655
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Ongoing Aesthetic and Recreational Injuries

Text: FTF additionally alleges that the Zone 8 classification in the FEIS/LMDP violates NEPA, and that the decision by TDEC, in partnership with TVA, to conceive a development plan for Fanning Bend and then allow it (land acquired by eminent domain or acquisition for a public purpose) to be conveyed to private developers for private residential development, is totally outside the scope of, and contrary to, the explicit language in the TVA Act, 16 U.S.C. § 831c(k)(a). FTF also alleges that TVA violated section 26a of the TVA Act, 16 U.S.C. § 831y-1, by granting permits for nine community dock facilities at Fanning Bend and permits to the City of Winchester to build a marina, boat docks, pier and boat slips on the shoreline of Parcel 79B, and that TVA and TDEC have undertaken these activities to implement the FEIS/LMDP in violation of NEPA. FTF alleges that these violations of the TVA Act and NEPA are injuring its members' aesthetic and recreational interests in the Reservoir. Again, we are compelled to find that FTF has failed its burden to demonstrate standing. Under this theory of harm, FTF has failed to allege future injury that could be redressed by the requested declaratory or injunctive relief, as its two members only allege direct harm from already-constructed community boat docks, yet seek: (1) issuance of a declaratory judgment that implementation of the FEIS/LMDP violates the TVA Act and NEPA; and (2) an injunction against unidentified future construction. See Lueckel, 417 F.3d at 537 (stating that plaintiffs... must show that actual, site-specific activities are diminishing or threaten to diminish their members' enjoyment of the designated river segments); see also San Diego County Gun Rights Comm. v. Reno, 98 F.3d 1121, 1126 (9th Cir.1996) (stating that [b]ecause plaintiffs seek declaratory and injunctive relief only, ... it is insufficient for them to demonstrate only a past injury); Nova Health Sys. v. Gandy, 416 F.3d 1149, 1155 n. 6 (10th Cir.2005). Furthermore, because FTF's suit does not additionally seek the destruction or modification of the community boat docks, nor does it seek, as noted by the district court, remedial measures to counteract or prevent the harms allegedly caused by the current docks, there is no value to a declaratory judgment stating that TVA and TDEC violated NEPA and the TVA Act. The real value of the judicial pronouncementwhat makes it a proper judicial resolution of a `case or controversy' rather than an advisory opinionis in the settling of some dispute which affects the behavior of the defendant towards the plaintiff.  Hewitt v. Helms, 482 U.S. 755, 761, 107 S.Ct. 2672, 96 L.Ed.2d 654 (1987); see also Steel Co., 523 U.S. at 107, 118 S.Ct. 1003 (noting that [r]elief that does not remedy the injury suffered cannot bootstrap a plaintiff into federal court; that is the very essence of the redressability requirement). Thus, FTF lacks standing to bring its claim alleging ongoing harm to its members' aesthetic and recreational enjoyment of the Reservoir.