Opinion ID: 1314438
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Record Support for the Consistency Finding

Text: 6 AAC 80.010(b) requires that uses and activities conducted by state agencies in coastal areas must be consistent with the standards of the ACMP. [3] In Hammond v. North Slope Borough, 645 P.2d 750, 761 (Alaska 1982), we recognized that by implication this regulation requires that a state agency may only authorize a use or activity in a coastal area if it finds that the use or activity is consistent with ACMP standards. Trustees contend that DNR's consistency determination is without adequate support in the record with respect to ACMP standards concerning (1) geophysical hazards, (2) historic, prehistoric, and archeological resources, and (3) transportation and utilities. We examine this argument as it pertains to each of those standards.
The ACMP regulation applicable to geophysical hazard areas provides: (a) Districts and state agencies shall identify known geophysical hazard areas and areas of high development potential in which there is a substantial possibility that geophysical hazards may occur. (b) Development in areas identified under (a) of this section may not be approved by the appropriate state or local authority until siting, design, and construction measures for minimizing property damage and protecting against loss of life have been provided. 6 AAC 80.050. There are thus two potentially applicable regulatory commands. The first is that areas with known or substantially possible geophysical hazards be identified. The second is that development in such areas not be approved unless adequate protective measures have been provided. Trustees are concerned specifically with those geophysical hazards associated with earthquakes. Trustees argue that DNR's failure to identify specific faults in Camden Bay makes it impossible to tailor a sale to reduce the seismic risks by, for example, excluding lease tracts along major fault lines. Trustees' argument continues: If a company purchases a lease in a seismically active area, undertakes the expense of exploration, and determines that producible quantities of oil are present, both DNR and the company may find it difficult to slow the momentum to produce. With geophysical hazard areas identified before the sale, both DNR and the oil companies would be able to internalize the added risks, thereby increasing the likelihood that sales, explorations and production will occur in more seismically stable areas. DNR replies that it identified the entire Sale 50 area as a geophysical hazard area. [4] DNR thus argues that 6 AAC 80.050 will be complied with so long as development is not approved until siting, design and construction measures for minimizing property damage and protecting against loss of life have been provided for. In addition, the leases stipulate that the lessees must submit a detailed plan of operations for approval before conducting exploratory or development work. These plans must identify specific measures to meet specific geophysical hazards which may exist at the development site. Trustees counter that identification of the entire sale area as an area of known geophysical hazard makes a mockery of the regulation and that DNR should undertake seismic studies prior to the sale to identify particular areas having special hazards. The regulation does not support Trustees' contention that DNR should have undertaken seismic studies to determine areas of particular hazard within the sale area. The regulation limits the duty of the appropriate state agency to identifying known or, as to areas of high development potential, substantially possible hazard areas. This clearly implies a duty to conduct a survey of available sources concerning hazards in the sale area and to report the results of such a survey, but it excludes a requirement to conduct field studies. DNR's summary statement that the entire Sale 50 area is a known geophysical hazard does not satisfy the regulatory requirements. We have already recognized that Sale 50 triggered the regulatory requirement of a conclusive ACMP consistency determination. Trustees I, 795 P.2d at 811-12. DNR therefore had the duty to determine whether the sale of oil and gas leases was consistent with the ACMP. The ACMP has, among its objectives, protecting numerous environmental and cultural values in Alaska's coastal zone. AS 46.40.020. As we have elsewhere had occasion to note, the ACMP's standards are extremely protective of the environment. Hammond, 645 P.2d at 761. Offshore areas are among the habitats subject to the Alaska coastal management program. 6 AAC 80.130(a)(1). Such habitats must be managed so as to maintain or enhance the biological, physical, and chemical characteristics of the habitat which contribute to its capacity to support living resources. 6 AAC 80.130(b) (emphasis added). Uses or activities that fail to maintain or enhance the habitat's capacity to support living resources may be authorized only if several stringent additional conditions are met. [5] 6 AAC 80.130(d). Given these strongly protective standards, it cannot be said that the decision to sell leases will invariably and automatically be consistent with the ACMP. The geophysical hazards in a given area could be such as to make any use or activity inconsistent with the ACMP. Where detailed knowledge is available, indiscriminate and conclusory identification of an entire sale area as a geophysical hazard area does not suffice to comply with 6 AAC 80.050(a). [6] In addition, deferring a careful and detailed look at particularized geophysical hazards to later stages of the development process, as DNR evidently intends, entails certain practical risks. [7] First, DNR's method means that particularized geophysical hazards will be considered on a lease-site-by-lease-site basis. This may tend to mask appreciation of any cumulative environmental threat that would otherwise be apparent if DNR began with a detailed and comprehensive identification of those hazards. [8] Second, as we noted in Trustees for Alaska v. Gorsuch, 835 P.2d 1239, 1246 n. 6 (Alaska 1992), the more segmented an assessment of environmental hazards, the greater the risk that prior permits will compel DNR to approve later, environmentally unsound permits. In light of these considerations, and given the plain language of the regulation, we conclude that this case must be remanded to DNR with instructions to identify and report on known and, as to areas of high development potential, substantially possible areas of geophysical hazards within Sale 50.
The applicable standard pertaining to historic, prehistoric and archeological resources (henceforth, archeological sites) is 6 AAC 80.150. 6 AAC 80.150 provides: Districts and appropriate state agencies shall identify areas of the coast which are important to the study, understanding, or illustration of national, state, or local history or prehistory. The regulation therefore directly commands state agencies to identify areas of the coast that are important to the study, understanding, or illustration of relevant history or prehistory. Although the record includes a number of studies identifying onshore archeological sites adjacent to the sale area, DNR did not conduct cultural resource surveys regarding archeological sites within the sale area. Instead, it delegated this task to the Sale 50 lessees, and required them to carry it out if and when they explored and developed the leased sites. [9] DNR defends its decision to delegate and postpone identifying archeological sites as follows. It argues that 6 AAC 80.150 does not require it to identify such sites prior to a lease sale. Instead, DNR reads the regulation as leaving it the discretion to determine  how and when such identification must take place. Its decision not to identify archeological sites at the lease sale stage was appropriate because [t]he existence of ... such resources on offshore areas is unlikely, because DNR and the Sale 50 leases stipulated that the lessee would report the discovery of any such resources and ... make every reasonable effort to protect them ... until instructed by DNR, [10] and because any development of the leased sites will be subject to an independent ACMP consistency review. Finally, DNR argues that it would be poor public policy for a court to require it to conduct and pay for detailed studies prior to merely conducting an oil and gas lease sale which authorizes no activity to take place on the leased tracts. DNR's decision to defer identification of archeological sites does not comply with 6 AAC 80.150. The regulation clearly requires the identification of archeological sites, but it does not state when they are to be identified. In the context of an oil lease sale, there are a number of possible ways that the regulation may be interpreted. Identification may be required: 1) before any sale; 2) at the time permits for exploration activity are sought; or 3) at the time permits for development are sought. There are also at least two possible levels of identification: 1) identification of known sites, necessitating only literature surveys and personal contact with individuals who may have knowledge concerning such sites; and 2) identification of unknown sites, necessitating field surveys and exploration. In our view the regulation is most reasonably interpreted to require, among other things, the identification of known archeological sites at the initial sale stage. Our reasons parallel those set forth above concerning the need to identify geophysical hazards. Protection and preservation of archeological sites is an objective of the ACMP. The statute requires that the ACMP. shall be consistent with the following objectives: ... . (5) the protection and management of significant historic, cultural, natural and aesthetic values and natural systems or processes within coastal area[.] AS 46.40.020. It may be that a particular area is so rich in archeological values that it could not be sold consistently with the ACMP. Further, reliance on the lessees to separately evaluate each lease on a site-by-site basis runs the risk of undervaluing the cumulative cultural significance of the region as a whole. Moreover, the lessees may have a conflict of interest that leads to the underreporting of archeological sites, since the presence of a site on a leasehold may make its development more difficult and costly. These possibilities may be remote in the context of an offshore lease sale. However, compliance with the identification requirement at the sale stage is not difficult, and our decision in this case will apply to future cases where archeological sites may be more abundant. Our holding that 6 AAC 80.150 requires identification of known archeological sites before a lease sale does not mean that more intensive duties are not required by this regulation at later stages of development. Nor does it mean that archeological sites are necessarily of overriding importance under the ACMP. What it does mean is that a regulation that calls for the State to identify areas that are important archeologically cannot be ignored when the State takes a significant step in committing an area to a particular type of development. DNR must comprehensively survey the known data, set out the results, and state its conclusions. As it has not done so in this case, a remand to DNR is necessary.
The applicable regulation concerning transportation and utilities provides: (a) Transportation and utility routes and facilities in the coastal area must be sited, designed, and constructed so as to be compatible with district programs. (b) Transportation and utility routes and facilities must be sited inland from beaches and shorelines unless the route or facility is water-dependent or no feasible and prudent inland alternative exists to meet the public need for the route or facility. 6 AAC 80.080. DNR's decision to sell oil leases in Camden Bay unquestionably did not directly violate 6 AAC 80.080. Until exploration is proposed and, in all likelihood, until and unless a commercially exploitable discovery is made, there will be no occasion for siting, designing or constructing transportation and utility routes. Consequently, the decision to sell oil leases cannot be inconsistent with this standard and DNR's consistency determination may not be found to have been erroneous on that ground.