Opinion ID: 185323
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The wild rice enhancement plan

Text: 23 We review FERC and the agencies' decision to require that WVIC undertake a wild rice enhancement plan under the APA's arbitrary-and-capricious standard. See 5 U.S.C. S 706(2)(A) (1994). A party seeking to have a court declare an agency action to be arbitrary and capricious carries a heavy burden indeed. Transmission Access Policy Study Group v. FERC, 225 F.3d 667, 714 (D.C. Cir. 2000). We will not substitute our own judgment for that of the agency, but will examine only whether the decision was based on a consideration of the relevant factors and whether there has been a clear error of judgment, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. v. Volpe, 401 U.S. 402, 416 (1971), whether the agency's policy choice is supported by substantial evidence, and whether there is a rational connection between the facts and the choice made. Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. v. FERC, 78 F.3d 659, 663 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1996). 24 At first blush, this case seemingly requires that we review two distinct actions: first, the agencies' conclusion that the wild rice enhancement plan would lead to the revitalization of wild rice at Lac Vieux Desert; and second, FERC's decision to include that condition in WVIC's project license. In fact only the agencies' action is relevant to our inquiry. FPA S 4(e) obliges FERC to include the conditions that are prescribed by agencies that have jurisdiction over reservation lands: Project licenses shall be subject to and contain such conditions as the agencies deem necessary. 16 U.S.C. S 797(e) (1994) (emphasis added). FERC has no discretion to decide whether or not to include a proposed condition in a project license; if an agency proposes a condition, FERC must include it. The Commission was not acting arbitrarily and capriciously when it included the agencies' wild-rice condition; it simply was following the law. 25 Therefore, we review only the underlying decision of the agencies, and in that analysis must determine whether it was arbitrary and capricious for the agencies to conclude that (1) 26 high water levels were responsible for the decline of wild rice at Lac Vieux Desert; (2) WVIC's 1937 construction of a reservoir dam caused those high water levels; (3) a reduction in water level will create conditions favorable to selfsustaining wild rice growth; and (4) the use of detritus mats would be an effective way of reintroducing wild rice to the reservoir. We conclude--given the very limited scope of our review, Transmission Access, 225 F.3d at 713--that the evidence before the agencies adequately supports each of their four conclusions. 27 First, the agencies' conclusion that an increase in Lac Vieux Desert's water depth was responsible for the decline in wild rice was not arbitrary and capricious. The agencies concede that a number of factors influence the success of wild rice, but point to abundant evidence indicating that water depth is the most important. To be sure, their experts appear to disagree on just how deep water threatens rice growth: one suggests that deep water does not allow enough sunlight to penetrate for photosynthesis to occur, while another proposes that deep water drowns the rice. But the crucial point is that the agencies have based their policy choice on substantial evidence. 28 Relatedly, it was not arbitrary and capricious for the agencies to conclude that WVIC's 1937 construction of a reservoir dam--which replaced a nineteenth-century logging dam--was responsible for so increasing the lake's depth as to kill off the then-extant wild rice. WVIC correctly points out that Lac Vieux Desert had been dammed for some 60 years before the rice began to decline in the 1940s. But it wrongly insinuates that, because wild rice thrived alongside the logging dam, the new dam cannot have been responsible for rice killing high water. That argument fails to take account of the crucial difference between logging dams and reservoir dams: While WVIC's reservoir dam maintains water depth at a constant level, the logging dam was used to build up a head of water that, when released, drove accumulated logs downstream. As Wisconsin's Supreme Court has explained: 29 A log-driving dam is not built for storage purposes or for keeping a constant head of water during the year, but for the raising of a head of water in the early spring and immediately using such water in successive rapid miniature floods during the spring months. The reservoir dam is built for the purpose of storing up a great quantity of water during the spring and conserving it for gradual depletion during the summer season. In the one case the normal situation is that the dam is empty at the beginning of the summer and so remains, while in the other case it is full at the beginning of the summer and remains so subject only to slow reduction when it becomes necessary to supplement the natural flow of the river which has become lessened by long-continued dry weather. 30 Chippewa & Flambeau Improvement Co. v. R.R. Comm'n, 159 N.W. 739, 745 (Wis. 1916). In fact, the two types of dams are practically the antitheses of each other. Id. 31 As the agencies point out, because the logging dam would have been opened in the spring, Lac Vieux Desert would have returned to its normal depth by June and July, just in time for the crucial floating leaf stage of wild rice growth. See Intervenors' brief at 35-36. The nineteenth-century reservoir dam would not have produced the consistent flooding the agencies propose was responsible for destroying Lac Vieux Desert's rice crop. It therefore was eminently reasonable for them to conclude that WVIC's reservoir dam produced the high water that in turn caused the decline in wild rice, even though WVIC's old logging dam resulted in no similar reduction. 32 Third, the agencies's conclusion that reducing Lac Vieux Desert's water level will enable the reservoir once again to sustain wild rice was not arbitrary and capricious. If high water is the principal factor inhibiting the growth of wild rice, it follows that reducing the reservoir's depth will create conditions more favorable to rice growth. WVIC attempts to cast doubt on the agencies' conclusion by pointing to another factor that, it submits, would continue to inhibit rice even if it 33 is made to reduce the reservoir's water level. The company proposes that Lac Vieux Desert will remain inhospitable to wild rice due to the continued presence of highly flocculent sediments which, it argues, will expose fragile rice shoots to destructive wind and wave action. But the company cannot explain why the reservoir's sediments did not inhibit rice growth before the 1940s. In addition, the agencies have introduced evidence demonstrating other highly flocculent lakes--including the Pat Shay and Kaine lakes--have been reseeded successfully. 34 Finally, it was not arbitrary and capricious for the agencies to conclude that the use of artificial detritus mats--layers of floating vegetative residue on which, it is supposed, rice can grow--would be an effective way of reintroducing wild rice to Lac Vieux Desert. WVIC has introduced evidence from a scientific expert that such detritus mats simply do not exist. The foundational assumption of the detritus-mat theory, WVIC's expert explained, is that several years' worth of undecomposed straw would amass on the lake's surface and provide a bed for rice growth. But it would be impossible for vegetative detritus to accumulate given that [m]ost of this straw is swept to shore before germination of the seed the next spring. 35 Given the presence of disputing expert witnesses, this controversy parallels one described by the Supreme Court as a classic example of a factual dispute the resolution of which implicates substantial agency expertise. Marsh v. Oregon Natural Resources Council, 490 U.S. 360, 376 (1989). We in this case, as the Supreme Court in that one, must defer to 'the informed discretion of the responsible federal agencies.'  Id. at 377 (quoting Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 412 (1976)). Like the Supreme Court in Marsh, we hold that the agency's decision concerning the evidence before it involves primarily issues of fact. Id. Accordingly, we hold that that decision was not arbitrary and capricious, and we cannot set it aside. 36 Here, the agencies had before them evidence that 10-14 inch-thick layers of vegetative detritus have been discovered on the bed of the Wisconsin River. It may be true, as WVIC argues, that because the detritus was found submerged on the river's bed, and not on its surface, it would be unlikely to support rice growth. If we were to decide the question as an original matter, we might well agree. But it is not our role to engage in the de novo weighing of evidence. As we recently emphasized, [i]t is not enough for petitioners to convince us of the reasonableness of their views; ... those arguments should be presented to FERC, whose commissioners are appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate with the expectation that they, not Article III courts, will make policy judgments. Transmission Access Policy Study Group v. FERC, 225 F.3d 667, 714 (D.C. Cir. 2000). The agencies here have based their policy choice on substantial scientific evidence and that is enough to survive arbitrary and-capricious review, whatever may be this Court's views as to the persuasiveness of that evidence. 37 In sum, because the agencies have relied upon sufficient expert evidence to establish a rational connection between the facts and the choice made, Bangor Hydro-Electric Co. v. FERC, 78 F.3d 659, 663 n.3 (D.C. Cir. 1996), it was not arbitrary and capricious for them to require WVIC to undertake a wild rice enhancement plan. To be sure, WVIC has submitted evidence that casts some doubt on the soundness of the agencies' conclusions. But as the Supreme Court emphasized in Marsh, we are not called upon to weigh competing experts' opinions as an original matter. Marsh, 490 U.S. at 378. We only inquire whether the agencies have based their policy choices on reasonable expert evidence. They have done so here.