Opinion ID: 501787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Revegetation Success Standards for Prime Farmland

Text: 148 In order to show effective reclamation of prime farmland, 22 the Secretary requires, as the measure of soil productivity, and prior to the release of the mine operator's performance bond, the actual growth of crops for at least a three-year period. 30 C.F.R. Sec. 823.15(b). 23 Industry complains that the Secretary and, on review, the district court failed to consider adequately whether a careful use of soil survey techniques would measure soil productivity in the manner (a) required by the statute, or (b) if not required by the Act, then at least preferable under the relevant section. 149 The Secretary's regulation calls for a comparison of the reclaimed land's actual crop productivity with the productivity of neighboring, nonmined prime farmland of the same soil type. To promote a valid comparison, similar management techniques must be employed and similar crops must be grown; measurement adjustments may be made, with the concurrence of the U.S. Soil Conservation Service, to account for disease, pest, and weather conditions, or specific management practice variations. Before revegetation will be accepted as successful, resulting in release of all or part of a performance bond or deposit, see SMCRA Sec. 519(c)(2), 24 average yield of the restored soil over a period of three or more crop years must equal or exceed the average yield of the comparison area. 150 Industry urges initially that the Sec. 519(c)(2) words until soil productivity for prime farm lands has returned to equivalent levels of yield are qualified by the further words of the section, as determined from the soil survey performed pursuant to section 507(b)(16). Under Industry's reading, a post-mining soil survey, not actual cropping, is the statutory requirement. The district court, however, concluded that the Secretary was entitled to require actual farming and we agree. 151 As the district court observed, [t]he survey required by [Sec. 507(b)(16) ] must be performed before mining takes place, to determine the exact location of the prime farmland. Thus, Congress could not have envisioned that [such a] survey could ... reveal the success of the reclamation operation. PSMRL II (Round II), 21 E.R.C. at 1732-33 (emphasis added). Section 519(c)(2), as we read it, relies on the pre-mining soil survey only to ensure that the comparison area is of the same soil type as the mined land in its pre-mined state. Furthermore, the words equivalent levels of yield, as they appear in the section, are most naturally and plausibly read to anticipate comparison of production yields between the reclaimed land and the nonmined reference area. 25 See FTC v. Manager Retail Credit Co., Miami Br. Office, 515 F.2d 988, 995 (D.C.Cir.1975) (courts should avoid reading statutes in a manner that renders passages functionless). We therefore reject the contention that the statute commands the use of soil survey techniques to measure soil productivity. 152 As to the preferable measurement method, the Secretary stated in the preamble to Sec. 823.15 of the regulation: OSM [the Office of Surface Mining] has determined that cropping is the only method currently available to test the restoration of the productivity of prime farmland soils because insufficient research has been published that demonstrates the reliability of any other method. 48 FED.REG. 21458 (1983). Industry concedes an even division of opinion as to whether the necessary techniques in a soil survey dealing with reclaimed cropland have yet been developed, but urges that a soil survey nonetheless provides a more accurate and much easier measure of soil productivity than does actual crop growth. Brief for Appellants NCA at 52. The Secretary, however, was alert to factors detracting from the reliability of actual crop growth (i.e., the impossibility of ensuring identical management practices between sample and reference areas, yield variations due to weather, disease or pest circumstances, see Brief for Appellants NCA at 51 & nn. 52-56). He endeavored to provide for reliability-enhancing adjustments, see 30 C.F.R. Sec. 823.15(b)(8), and considered this course sounder than adopting a standard as to which, even its proponents concede, there seems to be respectable opinion that further refinement is necessary. Brief for Appellants NCA at 53. 26 153 In sum, we do not hold that actual crop growth is required by the Act, although the statute at least arguably suggests such a requirement. Having rejected as unfounded Industry's contention that a soil survey is required, we have no cause to disturb the Secretary's reasoned and expert judgment that actual crop growth is the appropriate means to measure achievement of the statutory objective of restoration of prime farmland. See Motor Vehicle Mfrs. Ass'n v. State Farm Mut. Auto. Ins. Co., 463 U.S. 29, 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856, 2866-67, 77 L.Ed.2d 443 (1983). 154