Opinion ID: 3030641
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Cumulatively Significant Impact

Text: [15] The impact of an action is severe “if it is reasonable to anticipate a cumulatively significant impact on the environment.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7). Cumulative impact is the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what agency . . . or person undertakes such other actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. Kern, 284 F.3d at 1075 (quoting Churchill County v. Norton, 276 F.3d 1060, 1072 (9th Cir. 2001)). Moreover, in considering cumulative impact, an agency must provide “some quantified or detailed information; . . . [g]eneral statements about OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS 2525 possible effects and some risk do not constitute a hard look absent a justification regarding why more definitive information could not be provided.” Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain, 137 F.3d at 1379-80 (internal quotation marks omitted). This cumulative analysis “must be more than perfunctory; it must provide ‘a useful analysis of the cumulative impacts of past, present, and future projects.’ ” Kern, 284 F.3d at 1075 (quoting Muckleshoot Indian Tribe v. United States Forest Serv., 177 F.3d 800, 810 (9th Cir. 1999)). If the Corps’ determination of cumulative impact is fully informed and well considered, we should defer to that finding. On the other hand, we “need not forgive a clear error in judgment.” Kern, 284 F.3d at 1075 (internal quotation marks omitted). The question of cumulative impact depends in part on the Cherry Point refinery and two other existing piers in close proximity: an aluminum plant and the Ferndale oil refinery. With these three facilities, not accounting for the dock extension, an average of fifteen large commercial vessels travel in the Strait of Georgia each day. Up to ten small boats also use the Strait daily. At the peak of the fishing season, more than 100 fishing boats also share the same waterways each day. Approximately 600 ships, including large commercial vessels and barges, travel to the Ferndale refinery each year, thirty travel to the aluminum plant, and 200 ships make trips to the BP pier each year. Another terminal, proposed by Gateway Pacific, was to be constructed south of the BP refinery and was expected to increase vessel traffic in the Strait from an average of two large commercial vessel movements per day to three per day. The Corps concluded that the dock extension would not increase the number of crude oil tankers traveling in the Strait of Georgia and that any increase of crude oil tanker traffic would result from market forces, not the dock addition. The Corps based this conclusion on an unsubstantiated letter from BP, claiming that it had many options other than sea travel for transporting crude and refined oil to and from its refinery. 2526 OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS [16] This finding fails to convince us that the Corps took a “hard look” at the cumulative effects of the project, excludes the requisite quantified or detailed information necessary to support this finding, and neglects to explain why the Corps could not provide better or more specific information. In addition, it was reasonably foreseeable when BP applied for its permit that the dock extension, along with the existing and proposed projects, could lead to cumulatively significant environmental impacts. As mentioned, the Corps did not appreciate the potential effect of increased tanker traffic. The Corps and BP point out that the SLERA found that increased vessel traffic would occur through 2002 regardless of whether the dock extension was built. Because long-term projections were unavailable, the authors of the SLERA “assumed that the pier extension will eventually support an increase in traffic.” Reliance on this report is misplaced because the WSDNR, the author of the SLERA, contacted the Corps to clarify that its report was very narrow in scope, focusing only on the dock extension and not assessing the cumulative effects of multiple projects. Even if the SLERA considered the cumulative impact of other projects in the area, its vague and uncertain analysis of increased tanker traffic cannot qualify as quantified or detailed information. In granting the permit in 1995, the Corps concluded that neither construction nor operation of the proposed project would produce oil pollution because the chance of accidental oil spills already existed before the dock addition. Moreover, the dock would include high-tech spill containment booms, and the more efficient operation of the dock would lessen the chance of oil spills by reducing the time vessels wait to dock and allowing refueling at the dock. The Corps found that there would be “a decrease in the chances of oil spills while tankers are moored at docks,” but made no finding about the risk of oil spills while tankers traveled to those docks. The Corps did not provide any reason for ignoring the potential increase in OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS 2527 tanker traffic or declining to weigh the risk of oil spills while traveling against the reduced risk of a spill while docked. The Corps failed to consider how an increase in tanker traffic might reduce, or even outweigh, the alleged benefits of the new dock. This comparison would provide crucial information for assessing cumulative impacts accurately. In granting summary judgment for the Corps and BP on OA’s environmental claims, the district court found that NEPA did not require an EIS because the pier extension was intended to alleviate existing tanker traffic, which would increase due to market forces with or without the extension. To reach this decision, the district court erroneously determined that the intent of the dock extension was to deal with existing traffic and analogized to our decisions in Morongo Band of Mission Indians v. FAA, 161 F.3d 569 (9th Cir. 1998), and Seattle Community Council Federation v. FAA, 961 F.2d 829 (9th Cir. 1992), where the purpose of the proposed project was to increase efficiency and safety. Ocean Advocates, 167 F. Supp. 2d at 1212-13. Here, however, neither the Corps nor BP has proven that the purpose of the pier extension is primarily to increase efficiency and safety. Instead, the 1996 permit states that the “Need and Purpose” of the project is to “expand a petroleum product loading/ unloading facility.” Neither the 2000 amended permitting decision nor BP’s form application for a permit indicates that the central purpose of the project is to increase safety or efficiency. Morongo and Seattle Community Council Federation are also distinguishable because neither case dealt with any change in ground capacity. In both cases, the increased flight volume was a function of new routes into the same airport terminal, whereas in this case whatever increase in tanker traffic may occur results from the expansion of the pier itself. Finally, our cases applying a “growth-inducing” analysis to highway construction projects do not require a different result. In City-of-Carmel-By-The-Sea v. U.S. Department of Transportation, 123 F.3d 1142 (9th Cir. 1997), we held that 2528 OCEAN ADVOCATES v. U.S. ARMY CORPS OF ENG’RS a proposal to build a new bridge, two new interchanges, and to widen an intersecting road was necessitated by existing development and did not require further analysis in the EIS because whatever growth may occur was already accounted for and analyzed by local officials planning documents. Id. at 1162-63. Here, by contrast, even if we found that the pier expansion was necessitated by existing development, the foreseeable growth in tanker traffic has not been accounted for in any other planning documents. [17] The Corps’ findings about cumulative impacts were perfunctory and conclusory and do not provide a helpful analysis of past, present, and future projects. See Kern, 284 F.3d at 1075. OA has raised a substantial question as to whether the pier addition would result in cumulatively significant negative environmental impacts, and the Corps clearly erred in not providing responsive quantified or detailed information.