Opinion ID: 777060
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: Adequacy of the Sandy-Remote Environmental Assessment

Text: 42 The district court held that the revised EA adequately analyzed the environmental impacts of the proposed timber sales in the Sandy-Remote Area. The original EA contained no analysis of the fungus on the Port Orford Cedar. Indeed, it specifically excluded such analysis. Section S of the revised EA, which was prepared only after the timber sales had commenced and this litigation was initiated, does analyze the impact of the timber sales on the fungus and the Cedar, but it is the only part of the EA or revised EA to do so. 43 On appeal, ONRC attacks the revised EA, including Section S, on three grounds. First, ONRC claims the revised EA was not timely because it was prepared after the timber sales were completed. Second, ONRC claims the revised EA improperly tiers to the deficient EIS for the Coos Bay RMP and the Guidelines. Finally, ONRC claims that Section S of the revised EA fails to address the cumulative impact of the Sandy-Remote timber sales and other reasonably foreseeable future actions on the Cedar. Because we agree with ONRC on the second and third grounds, we express no opinion as to the first. Even assuming that the analysis contained in Section S was timely, the revised EA is nevertheless inadequate under NEPA.
44 The revised EA for the Sandy-Remote Area impermissibly attempts to tier both to the EIS for the Coos Bay RMP and to the Guidelines. As just discussed, the EIS for the Coos Bay RMP is inadequate because it, too, impermissibly attempts to tier to the Guidelines. The revised EA is therefore inadequate to the extent that it attempts to tier to the EIS. The same is true of the revised EA's attempt to tier to the Guidelines. As the district court correctly stated: 45 [D]efendant attempts to utilize the [Port Orford Cedar] guidelines, which were never subject to NEPA review, by asserting that the EA did not tier to the guidelines but merely referenced them as[a] shorthand way of describing a set of potential mitigation measures. However, NEPA requires more than a shorthand reference to consider environmental impacts of an agency's mitigation measures. To the extent that the Coos Bay RMP played a role with respect to the timber sales, it suffers from the same infirmity. 46 Kern v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 38 F.Supp.2d 1174, 1182 n. 3 (D.Or.1999) (citation omitted).
47 Because the revised EA for the Sandy-Remote Area may not tier to either the EIS or the Guidelines, we examine whether the revised EA, standing alone, satisfies the requirements of NEPA. Section S of the revised Sandy-Remote EA analyzes the impact only of the specific timber sales proposed for the Sandy-Remote Area, and it analyzes the impact of that agency action only in that Area. It performs no analysis of impacts outside the Area. Most important, it performs no cumulative impact analysis of reasonably foreseeable future actions outside the Sandy-Remote Area that, in combination with the Sandy-Remote timber sales, could constitute collectively significant actions... over a period of time. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7. Because the revised Sandy-Remote EA does not perform such an analysis, we hold that it is inadequate under NEPA. 48 In determining the scope of the required NEPA analysis, an agency must consider not only the proposed action, but also three types of related actions — connected actions, similar actions, and cumulative actions. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a). Cumulative actions are those which when viewed with other proposed actions have cumulatively significant impacts. Id. § 1508.25(a)(2). In determining the significance of a proposed action, an agency must consider 49 Whether the action is related to other actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively significant impacts. Significance exists if it is reasonable to anticipate a cumulatively significant impact on the environment. Significance cannot be avoided by terming an action temporary or by breaking it down into small component parts. 50 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7). See also Churchill County v. Norton, 276 F.3d 1060, 1072 (9th Cir.2001). The regulations define cumulative impact as: 51 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 (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. 52 Id. (emphasis added). 53 Consideration of cumulative impacts requires some quantified or detailed information; ... [g]eneral statements about `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. The cumulative impact analysis must be more than perfunctory; it must provide a useful analysis of the cumulative impacts of past, present, and future projects. Muckleshoot Indian Tribe, 177 F.3d at 810. Finally, cumulative impact analysis must be timely. It is not appropriate to defer consideration of cumulative impacts to a future date when meaningful consideration can be given now. See Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain, 137 F.3d at 1380; City of Tenakee Springs, 915 F.2d at 1312-13. When an agency's determination of what are reasonably foreseeable future actions and appropriate component parts is `fully informed and well-considered,' we will defer to that determination. Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Blackwood, 161 F.3d 1208, 1211 (9th Cir.1998) (quoting Save the Yaak Comm. v. Block, 840 F.2d 714, 717 (9th Cir.1988)). But we need not forgive a `clear error in judgment.' Id. Federal regulations do not explicitly require an EIS to include a discussion of cumulative impacts, Edwardsen v. United States Dep't of Interior, 268 F.3d 781, 786(9th Cir.2001), but they do direct[] agencies to consider cumulative impacts in determining the scope of an EIS. Id., citing 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(c)(3). We have interpreted the regulations to require that the EIS consider the cumulative impact of the proposed action. See Edwardsen, 268 F.3d at 786-90; see also Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain, 137 F.3d at 1378([W]here `several actions have a cumulative ... environmental effect, this consequence must be considered in an EIS.' City of Tenakee Springs v. Clough, 915 F.2d 1308, 1312 (9th Cir.1990).). 54 Similarly, NEPA regulations contain only a brief description of the requirements for an EA, and do not specifically mention cumulative impact analysis. They state that an EA must: 55 (1) Briefly provide sufficient evidence and analysis for determining whether to prepare an environmental impact statement or a finding of no significant impact; (2) Aid an agency's compliance with the Act when no environmental impact statement is necessary; (3) Facilitate preparation of a statement when one is necessary. 56 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a). An EA [s]hall include brief discussions of the need for the proposal, of alternatives as required by section 102(2)(E) [of NEPA], of the environmental impacts of the proposed action and alternatives, and a listing of agencies and persons consulted. Id. § 1508.9(b). 57 We have held that an EA may be deficient if it fails to include a cumulative impact analysis or to tier to an EIS that has conducted such an analysis. See Hall v. Norton, 266 F.3d 969, 978 (9th Cir.2001); Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, 161 F.3d at 1214; Idaho Sporting Cong. v. Thomas, 137 F.3d 1146, 1152 (9th Cir.1998). Other circuits have also recognized the requirement that, in appropriate cases, an EA must include a cumulative impact analysis. See, e.g. Soc'y Hill Towers Owners' Ass'n v. Rendell, 210 F.3d 168, 180(3d Cir.2000) ([I]f the cumulative impact of a given project and other planned projects is significant, an applicant can not simply prepare an EA for its project, issue a FONSI, and ignore the overall impact of the project ...); Newton County Wildlife Ass'n v. Rogers, 141 F.3d 803, 809 (8th Cir.1998) (holding that an EA adequately addressed cumulative impacts where it covered a timber sale involving 1,871 acres but considered environmental impacts on 26,699 acres). The importance of analyzing cumulative impacts in EAs is apparent when we consider the number of EAs that are prepared. The Council on Environmental Quality noted in a recent report that in a typical year, 45,000 EAs are prepared compared to 450 EISs.... Given that so many more EAs are prepared than EISs, adequate consideration of cumulative effects requires that EAs address them fully.  Council on Environmental Quality, Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act at 4, Jan. 1997, also available at http://ceq.eh.doe.gov/nepa/ccenepa/ccenepa.htm (last visited Feb. 26, 2002) (emphasis added). 58 We have previously indicated, in cases similar to this one, that cumulative impact analysis is appropriate at the EA level. In Hall v. Norton, the BLM proposed to exchange 4,975 acres of land it owned in the Las Vegas Valley so that a private developer could build approximately 11,200 new homes on the land. The BLM prepared an EA that analyzed the pollution that would result from development on the land, but that failed to analyze the additional pollution that might result if other land it owned in the Las Vegas Valley were also exchanged. Plaintiff had alleged in his complaint that the EA had failed to consider cumulative impacts, but the district court had dismissed the complaint without considering the argument. We noted that the BLM owned an additional 57,000 acres of land in the Las Vegas Valley. Those lands had already been `identified for disposal' [by the BLM], but the EA did not attempt to quantify the cumulative emissions from potential development on these lands. NEPA requires that an agency consider cumulative impacts of an action and of foreseeable related actions. 266 F.3d at 978. We remanded to the district court for consideration of the plaintiff's cumulative impact argument. 59 In Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project, the Forest Service planned to conduct a number of salvage sales of timber after wildfires had burned large areas in eastern Oregon. The Tower Fire, the largest of the fires, had burned a 140 square-mile area in the Umatilla National Forest, and the Forest Service planned five salvage sales in that area. It prepared no overall EIS, but did prepare an EA for one of the five sales. Plaintiff challenged the failure to prepare an overall EIS for all the salvage sales contemplated in the area burned by the Tower Fire, and it challenged the adequacy of the EA for the particular sale. 60 We held, first, that an EIS was required for the contemplated salvage sales in the entire Tower Fire area. We held, second, that the EA prepared for the single sale was inadequate because it failed to do a cumulative impact analysis of all the reasonably foreseeable sales: 61 [Plaintiff] alleges that the ... EA fails to address, or even mention, three of the four other salvage sales proposed for the Tower Fire area. Relying on the Forest Service's own acknowledgment that the five sales are part of a coordinated Tower Fire recovery strategy, [plaintiff] argues that the Forest Service should have evaluated the cumulative impacts of these sales in a single EIS. We agree. 62 161 F.3d at 1215. 63 We have also recognized the importance of cumulative impact analysis of agency actions in other contexts. In Pacific Coast Federation of Fishermen's Ass'n v. National Marine Fisheries Service, 265 F.3d 1028 (9th Cir.2001), plaintiffs challenged the adequacy of four biological opinions issued by the National Marine Fisheries Service (NMFS). The opinions concluded that 23 timber sales in the Umpqua River Basin in Oregon were not likely to jeopardize the continued existence of two species of cutthroat trout and coho salmon. We held that the opinions violated the arbitrary and capricious and clear error in judgment standard of the Administrative Procedure Act, 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), because they failed to consider the cumulative effect of the proposed timber sales: 64 [T]he record contains no proof that the cumulative effect of site specific degradation was considered in reaching a no jeopardy opinion at the regional watershed level.... [The agency's] disregard of projects with a relatively small area of impact but that carried a high risk of degradation when multiplied by many projects and continued over a long time period is the major flaw in NMFS study.... If in fact [the NMFS] disregards [the effects of individual projects] as localized when they can have significant aggregate effects, it acts arbitrarily and capriciously. 65 Id. at 1036-37. 66 NEPA requires that the BLM analyze the impact of reasonably foreseeable timber sales, and of other reasonably foreseeable future actions, on the fungus and the Cedar. We have already held that the BLM must conduct such an analysis in the EIS for the RMP for the entire Coos Bay District. We now hold that the BLM must also conduct such an analysis in any EA for this site-specific project within that District. We do not hold that no EA for a site-specific project can ever be adequate if the project is undertaken pursuant to an RMP for which there is an inadequate EIS. Rather, we hold that the impacts, including the cumulative impacts, of the site-specific project must be fully analyzed in any EA for that project. If, as is the case here, there is no analysis in the EIS, the scope of the required analysis in the EA is correspondingly increased. 67 In the case now before us, the entire analysis of the impact of the timber sales in the Sandy-Remote Area is contained in Section S of the revised EA. Section S purports to be a cumulative impact analysis, but it is limited to an analysis of the impacts of the timber sales solely within the Sandy-Remote Area. (Section S makes clear its limited scope when it states that [t]he Sandy-Remote watershed is a reasonable landscape scale for considering the cumulative impacts of[the fungus] on [the Port Orford Cedar].) 68 Section S makes no attempt to analyze possible spill-over effects of the Sandy-Remote timber sales on the spread of the fungus outside the Sandy-Remote Area. For example, it proposes closure of some roads, as well as restriction of some roads to summer use (when there will be less mud), but it makes no attempt to estimate the likelihood that, despite such measures, mud containing the fungus will cling to logging trucks that drive out of the Sandy-Remote watershed into other areas. More important, Section S makes no attempt to analyze the cumulative impacts of the Sandy-Remote timber sales when combined with reasonably foreseeable future actions (such as other timber sales) outside the Sandy-Remote Area. Section S has thus not performed a cumulative impact analysis as that term is used in the regulations and in our case law. 69 In the absence of an EIS analyzing the impact of reasonably foreseeable future timber sales within the Coos Bay District under the proposed RMP, we hold that it was arbitrary and capricious, and a clear error in judgment, for the BLM not to include in the revised EA for the Sandy-Remote Area an analysis of the cumulative impacts of such sales within that District. At a minimum, the BLM is required to provide such an analysis in the EA. If such an analysis is not made, it would be easy to underestimate the cumulative impacts of the timber sales in the Sandy-Remote Area, and of other reasonably foreseeable future actions, on the spread of the fungus and the welfare of the Cedar. Such a restricted analysis would impermissibly subject the decisionmaking process contemplated by NEPA to the tyranny of small decisions. Considering Cumulative Effects, at 1. As we have previously said, NEPA does not allow an approach that would permit dividing a project into multiple `actions,' each of which individually has an insignificant environmental impact, but which collectively have a substantial impact. Thomas v. Peterson, 753 F.2d 754, 758 (9th Cir.1985); see also Churchill County, 276 F.3d at 1076(an agency [can]not escape the existence of a comprehensive program with cumulative environmental effects by `disingenuously describing it as only an amalgamation of unrelated smaller projects') (citation omitted). 70 It is thus clear that the BLM should have included reasonably foreseeable timber sales under the currently proposed RMP for the Coos Bay District in a cumulative impact analysis. It is less clear whether the BLM should have included other actions in such an analysis. Such other actions might include BLM timber sales outside the Coos Bay District but within the geographic range of the Port Orford Cedar; timber sales by other federal agencies, or timber harvesting by private parties, outside the Coos Bay District but within the range of the Cedar; or any other actions with an impact on the fungus and the Cedar. If such actions are reasonably foreseeable future actions within the meaning of § 1508.7, the regulations required that they be included in a cumulative impact analysis. 71 We say this to make clear how far the obligation of the BLM extends under the regulations. However, because at this point the BLM has conducted no cumulative impact analysis whatsoever of timber sales or other actions outside the Sandy-Remote Area, we do not know whether there are any actions, beyond the timber sales that are within the scope of the RMP, that would qualify as reasonably foreseeable future actions within the meaning of the regulations. It is for the BLM to make that judgment in the first instance. Once it has made that judgment, we will not interfere unless it has acted arbitrarily and capriciously or has made a clear error in judgment. On the record that is now before us, we intimate no opinion on whether there are or may be any other reasonably foreseeable future actions that the BLM must consider.