Opinion ID: 447020
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: CEQ Regulations

Text: 20 The CEQ regulations require connected actions to be considered together in a single EIS. See 40 C.F.R. Sec. 1508.25(a)(1) (1984). Connected actions are defined, in a somewhat redundant fashion, as actions that 21
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23 (iii) Are interdependent parts of a larger action and depend on the larger action for their justification. Id. 24 The construction of the road and the sale of the timber in the Jersey Jack area meet the second and third, as well as perhaps the first, 2 of these criteria. It is clear that the timber sales cannot proceed without the road, and the road would not be built but for the contemplated timber sales. This much is revealed by the Forest Service's characterization of the road as a logging road, and by the first page of the environmental assessment for the road, which states that [t]he need for a transportation route in the assessment area is to access the timber lands to be developed over the next twenty years. Moreover, the environmental assessment for the road rejected a no action alternative because that alternative would not provide the needed timber access. The Forest Service's cost-benefit analysis of the road considered the timber to be the benefit of the road, and while the Service has stated that the road will yield other benefits, it does not claim that such other benefits would justify the road in the absence of the timber sales. Finally, the close interdependence of the road and the timber sales is indicated by an August 1981 letter in the record from the Regional Forester to the Forest Supervisor. It states, We understand that sales in the immediate future will be dependent on the early completion of portions of the Jersey Jack Road. It would be advisable to divide the road into segments and establish separate completion dates for those portions to be used for those sales. E.R. 111. 25 We conclude, therefore, that the road construction and the contemplated timber sales are inextricably intertwined, and that they are connected actions within the meaning of the CEQ regulations.
26 The CEQ regulations also require that cumulative actions be considered together in a single EIS. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 1508.25(a)(2). Cumulative actions are defined as actions which when viewed with other proposed actions have cumulatively significant impacts. Id. The record in this case contains considerable evidence to suggest that the road and the timber sales will have cumulatively significant impacts. The U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the Idaho Department of Fish & Game have asserted that the road and the timber sales will have significant cumulative effects that should be considered in an EIS. The primary cumulative effects, according to these agencies, are the deposit of sediments in the Salmon River to the detriment of that river's population of salmon and steelhead trout, see E.R. 41-44, and the destruction of critical habitat for the endangered Rocky Mountain Gray Wolf, see id. at 48-50. These agencies have criticized the Forest Service for not producing an EIS that considers the cumulative impacts of the Jersey Jack road and the timber sales. See id. at 57-58, 60, 62-64. For example, the Fish & Wildlife Service has written, Separate documentation of related and cumulative potential impacts may be leading to aquatic habitat degradation unaccounted for in individual EA's (i.e., undocumented cumulative effects).... Lack of an overall effort to document cumulative impacts could be having present and future detrimental effects on wolf recovery potential. Id. at 57-58. These comments are sufficient to raise substantial questions as to whether the road and the timber sales will have significant cumulative environmental effects. Therefore, on this basis also, the Forest Service is required to prepare an EIS analyzing such effects. See Foundation for North American Wild Sheep v. United States Dept. of Agriculture, 681 F.2d 1172, 1178 (9th Cir.1982); City & County of San Francisco v. United States, 615 F.2d 498, 500 (9th Cir.1980).