Opinion ID: 454902
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Summary Judgment on the Complaint.

Text: 9 On appeal, Zemansky disputes only that portion of the dismissal of his complaint relating to the first and second instances of alleged EPA noncompliance with the FOIA. The district court found that affidavits EPA submitted with its summary judgment motion depicted an adequate search for the documents requested in both instances. In reviewing this decision, the facts must be viewed in the light most favorable to the requestor. See Weisberg v. United States Dept. of Justice, 745 F.2d 1476, 1485 (D.C.Cir.1984). The agency must: 10 demonstrate that it has conducted a search reasonably calculated to uncover all relevant documents. Further, the issue to be resolved is not whether there might exist any other documents possibly responsive to the request, but rather whether the search for those documents was adequate. The adequacy of the search, in turn, is judged by a standard of reasonableness and depends, not surprisingly, upon the facts of each case. In demonstrating the adequacy of the search, the agency may rely upon reasonably detailed, nonconclusory affidavits submitted in good faith. 11 Id. (Citations omitted.) (Emphasis in original.) The district court reached its decision in favor of EPA by applying a substantively identical test. See Weisberg v. United States Dept. of Justice, 705 F.2d 1344, 1351 (D.C.Cir.1983).
12 The basis of the first instance of alleged noncompliance with FOIA was a letter to EPA's Region 10 office dated September 29, 1981 requesting, as later characterized by Zemansky, documents relating to (1) EPA water quality surveys in Alaska and (2) interactions between EPA and the TAPS builder, Alyeska. Zemansky complains on appeal that EPA's response overlooked the second group entirely.... EPA has produced no affidavit or specific explanation of any search for records of the second group requested. 2 (Emphasis is Zemansky's.) The EPA maintains that its affidavits were sufficient. 13 The affidavits portray an adequate search for documents related to interactions between EPA and Alyeska. Micheline Ward, the FOIA coordinator for the Region 10 Water Division since June, 1982, was assigned to review Zemansky's requests and search for, or initiate searches for, relevant documents. In her affidavit, Ward describes her search for certain documents requested in the letter of September 29, 1981 generally regarding the trans-Alaska pipeline system, thus clearly addressing herself to the second group. Ward reports finding an October 22, 1981 letter to Zemansky from James Sweeney, the then-Director of the Alaska Operations Office (AOO), stating that none of the requested material could be found at the AOO. The files also showed that Ward's supervisor had contacted Sweeney's successor, who also reported finding no relevant documents. 14 Ward also contacted Sweeney, who told her that he had no knowledge of any existing AOO documents other than some that had been sent to the Seattle regional office for EPA attorney Cheryl Koshuta to review as part of her work in another Zemansky-EPA suit. At Ward's request, Koshuta reviewed the documents that had been sent to her (consisting of one large box of files) and found nothing generally regarding the Trans-Alaska-Pipeline. Based on her personal knowledge of the contents of the files, Koshuta concluded that the files in my custody do not contain documents which are in response to the FOIA request of September 29, 1981. 15 Ward's supervisor, Robert Burd, submitted an affidavit explaining that the AOO files had been shipped to the Seattle office for Koshuta's use. Burd also reports checking with Sweeney's successor at AOO, who reported finding nothing responsive to the request. 16 Contrary to Zemansky's assertions, the affidavits do not ignore the second group of documents requested in the September 29, 1984 letter, that is, those relating to inter-actions between EPA and the TAPS builder Alyeska. The affidavits all report searches for documents responsive to this letter and generally related to TAPS.
17 Zemansky's second claim stemmed from his November 27, 1981 letter to EPA requesting documents regarding planning of State of Alaska-EPA roles for the 1982 placer mining season and a meeting held November 2, 1981 to discuss EPA's role. Zemansky contends that the affidavits did not sufficiently address attempts made to locate records of this meeting. The affidavit of Ward notes that the letter was not treated as an FOIA request because it appeared to be a personal letter to the Regional Administrator. Ward also said in her affidavit that if such records existed (pertaining to inter-agency roles), they most likely would be maintained by the State-EPA Agreement (SEA) Coordinator, Julie Hagensen. In her affidavit, Hagensen reports that she was unable to locate any specific document responsive to the request for documents pertaining to the planning of interagency roles for the 1982 placer mining season. Hagensen examined the Alaska FY '81 and FY '82 SEA files as well as the general SEA files for FY '81-82 while searching for responsive documents. 18 Zemansky argues that EPA's affidavits are inadequate because neither of the two EPA employees attending the November 2, 1981 meeting was ever asked to locate records of this meeting, even though one of them, Diane Soderlund, did produce an affidavit and records concerning another meeting. The EPA notes that it did not know who had attended the meeting until Zemansky provided the information in his answering affidavit and that, at that time, EPA did inquire of Soderlund, who was able to produce some rough, handwritten notes on yellow paper that might have been responsive. Those were offered to Zemansky during a prebriefing telephone conference and, apparently, refused. 19 Zemansky recognizes that [a]ffidavits describing agency search procedures are sufficient for purposes of summary judgment only if they are relatively detailed in their description of the files searched and the search procedures, and if they are nonconclusory and not impugned by evidence of bad faith. (Citing McGehee v. CIA, 697 F.2d 1095, 1102 (D.C.Cir.1983)). The EPA affidavits meet this standard. 20