Opinion ID: 3039772
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 4

Heading: How the EA falls short

Text: The Mr. Wilson Environmental Assessment is inadequate for the reasons previously explained in KSWC. First, the BLM failed to disclose and consider quantified and detailed information regarding the cumulative impact of the Mr. Wilson logging project combined with past, present, and reasonably foreseeable logging projects. Second, the EA was tiered to other documents that did not contain the requisite site-specific information about cumulative effects.
[4] The BLM failed to disclose and consider quantified and detailed information regarding the cumulative impact of the Mr. Wilson logging project combined with past, present, and reasonably foreseeable logging projects. The BLM distinguishes the requirements of an Environmental Assessment from an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS), and argues that the Mr. Wilson EA contains enough information to allow it to determine that the project would have no significant environmental impacts. This argument in effect says that the EA is sufficient “because we say it is.” As discussed below, case law in this circuit holds that such an answer must be supported by proper procedure. In determining whether a proposed action will significantly impact the human environment, the agency must consider “[w]hether 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.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7). NEPA’s implementing regulations define cumulative impact as “the impact on the environment which 19010 OREGON NATURAL RESOURCES v. U.S. BLM results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions . . . . Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7. The Mr. Wilson EA’s discussion of cumulative impacts identifies seven past and future actions which could affect the watershed. The EA notes that: The Key Elk, Mr. Wilson, and future Bear Pen and Willy Slide timber sales, would remove or modify up to approximately 1,000 acres of late-successional habitat. Several large blocks greater than 300 acres, functioning as corner to corner contiguous habitat with other blocks, are likely to be substantially reduced, and fragmented. The remaining small isolated habitat blocks in some sections are likely to be harvested, removing the last late-successional blocks in some sections. The EA then addressed the effects of this removal on high mobility and low mobility species. “Species with high mobility, such as northern spotted owls, would likely still be able to disperse across the landscape,” while “[t]he dispersal capability of species with low mobility, such as Del Norte salamanders, red tree voles, and mollusks, would be substantially reduced . . . .” [5] KSWC addressed a similar cumulative impact objection to EAs. Like the Mr. Wilson EA, the EAs at issue in KSWC did not contain objective quantified assessments of the combined environmental impacts of the proposed actions. KSWC, 387 F.3d at 994. The discussion of future foreseeable actions consisted of “an estimate of the number of acres to be harvested. A calculation of the total number of acres to be harvested in the watershed is a necessary component of a cumulative effects analysis, but it is not a sufficient descripOREGON NATURAL RESOURCES v. U.S. BLM 19011 tion of the actual environmental effects that can be expected from logging those acres.” Id. at 995. The EAs also stated that environmental concerns such as air quality, water quality, and endangered species would not be affected. Id. However, “[t]he EA is silent as to the degree that each factor will be impacted and how the project design will reduce or eliminate the identified impacts. This conclusory presentation does not offer any more than the kind of general statements about possible effects and some risk which we have held to be insufficient to constitute a hard look.” Id. (internal quotation marks omitted). Both the Mr. Wilson and the KSWC EAs “do not sufficiently identify or discuss the incremental impact that can be expected from each successive timber sale, or how those individual impacts might combine or synergistically interact with each other to affect the [watershed] environment.” Id. at 997.
[6] The Mr. Wilson EA is tiered to documents which did not contain the requisite site-specific information about the impacts of past, present, and reasonably foreseeable logging. “Tiering” refers to the coverage of general matters in broader environmental impact statements (such as national program or policy statements) with subsequent narrower statements or environmental analyses (such as regional or basinwide program statements or ultimately site-specific statements) incorporating by reference the general discussions and concentrating solely on the issues specific to the statement subsequently prepared. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.28. [7] The Mr. Wilson EA is tiered to the West Fork Cow Creek Wastershed Analysis, and to the Medford District Proposed Regional Management Plan-EIS (RMP-EIS). In KSWC, 19012 OREGON NATURAL RESOURCES v. U.S. BLM we held that the Medford District RMP-EIS could not save the EAs because it was missing “any specific information about the cumulative effects. Neither in the RMP-EIS nor in the EAs does the agency reveal the incremental impact that can be expected . . . as a result of each of these four successive timber sales.” KSWC, 387 F.3d at 997. The BLM contends that, unlike the Mr. Wilson project land, the land involved in KSWC was not matrix land identified to produce a sustainable supply of timber and other forest commodities. However, both cases involve Tier 1 Key Watersheds which contain designated critical habitat for the northern spotted owl. Id. at 992. Contrary to the BLM’s contention, KSWC is not distinguishable on this ground. Tiering to the Medford District RMP-EIS does not save the EA’s cumulative effects analysis. Prepared in 1997, the West Fork Cow Creek Watershed Analysis similarly does not address the incremental impact of the Mr. Wilson logging project, and therefore does not save the cumulative effects analysis. Moreover, the Watershed Analysis is not a NEPA document and therefore the EA cannot tier to it. Id. at 998.