Opinion ID: 797350
Heading Depth: 6
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Impact of Topographic Irregularities

Text: 85 The CTDEP justified its finding that Islander East would be able to achieve its benthic topography restoration goal solely by referencing its experience with the 1991 installation of the Iroquois Pipeline. Denial at 5. Again, the agency cited no data or studies to support this conclusion. 86 First, the Denial points to no record evidence demonstrating that the Iroquois project permanently degraded the benthic substrate of Long Island Sound waters. Even if the record contained evidence indicating that those waters have yet to recover, we again emphasize that it is not our province to mine the record for data supporting the agency's blanket conclusions. 87 Second, and more important, the CTDEP failed to acknowledge the extensive work Islander East did to modernize and improve its technology so as to avoid causing similar environmental harm to that wrought by the Iroquois Pipeline. Islander East proposed to: (1) use HDD technology to drill under the seabed so as not to disturb the sea floor, as opposed to Iroquois, which dredged the seafloor from the shore to the 15-foot water mark; (2) place dredge spoil on barges, and backfill trenches with engineered bank-run gravel designed to increase habitat diversity, whereas Iroquois sidecast dredged material back onto the sea floor and backfilled the trenches with some of the sidecast spoil; and (3) restore the sea bottom contours without dragging a 40-ton steel box over the sea floor, as Iroquois had done at the request of CTDEP, apparently with unfortunate results. See generally Islander East WQC Application. Additionally, as indicated by the record, it was acknowledged at two multi-agency meetings that installation technology [has] significantly improved since the Iroquois line installation. Feb. Minutes at 1; see also March Minutes at 4 (A general discussion about the 1991 Iroquois installation resulted in agreement that installation methods have greatly improved....). 88 The Denial neglected even to mention these proposed installation improvements, much less point to evidence indicating that they would have been inadequate to avoid the topographic irregularities caused by the Iroquois installation. Although, as the dissent points out, see post at 112-13, it was Islander East's burden to demonstrate its entitlement to favorable action on its WQC application, it was the CTDEP's burden adequately to consider important aspects of the issue. See State Farm, 463 U.S. at 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856. By rejecting Islander East's topography predictions out of hand, with no discussion of its attempts to improve construction methods, the agency failed to examine the relevant data and articulate a satisfactory explanation for its action including a rational connection between the facts found and the choice made. Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). 89 The CTDEP's conclusion that the proposed pipeline would violate its antidegradation policy was unsupported and contradicted by evidence in the record, and therefore must be rejected as arbitrary and capricious.