Opinion ID: 223638
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: cumulative effects of future projects

Text: CELP also disputes the EA's treatment of the cumulative effects of three future projects. As to two of those projects  one of which would channel already diverted water by different routes and one of which involves developing conservation programs  CELP has not carried its initial burden to show the potential for cumulative impact. Te-Moak Tribe of W. Shoshone of Nev. v. U.S. Dep't of Interior, 608 F.3d 592, 605 (9th Cir.2010). In particular, CELP challenges neither the EA's statement that the rechanneling project will not involve additional, and therefore cumulative, diversions of water from the Columbia River nor Reclamation's assertion that the conservation project is too nascent to have reasonably foreseeable cumulative effects. CELP has accordingly not shown that the EA's discussion of these projects fails to comport with NEPA. CELP's challenge to the EA's treatment of the third future project, the Odessa Subarea Special Study, is considerably more consequential. The cumulative effects section of the EA mentions the Special Study, in which Reclamation is investigat[ing] the possibility of delivering additional water from the Columbia River to lands currently using groundwater in the Odessa Subarea. The EA nonetheless concludes that [n]one of the actions under study as part of the ... Special Study is reasonably foreseeable. This conclusion, which the district court accepted and which is pressed by both Reclamation and Ecology on appeal, cannot be harmonized with our precedents. We have define[d] ... reasonably foreseeable action[s], for which cumulative impacts must be analyzed, to include proposed actions. N. Alaska Envtl. Ctr. v. Kempthorne, 457 F.3d 969, 980 (9th Cir. 2006) (internal quotation marks omitted). Furthermore, we have previously held that an action is not too speculative to qualify as a proposed action when the agency issues a notice of intent to prepare an EIS. Id. ; accord City of Tenakee Springs v. Clough, 915 F.2d 1308, 1313 (9th Cir.1990). Here, in August 2008, almost a year before Reclamation published its final EA, the agency issued a notice of intent to prepare an [EIS] for the Odessa Subarea Special Study. See 73 Fed. Reg. 49487-02 (Aug. 21, 2008). The Special Study was therefore reasonably foreseeable at the time Reclamation prepared the EA for the drawdown project. It does not, however, follow that the EA violated NEPA. In Northern Alaska Environmental Center, we held that an agency did not violate NEPA even though it failed to consider the cumulative effects of an action for which it had previously issued a notice of intent. We reasoned that [t]he issue is one of timing. 457 F.3d at 980. Because the notice of intent had in effect given notice that [the agency would] consider all impacts, including cumulative impacts, as part of the future EIS, and because the courts could hold the agency to that implied promise, it was sufficient for the agency to address [the impacts of the future project] at a later stage. Id.; see also Salmon River Concerned Citizens v. Robertson, 32 F.3d 1346, 1357-58 (9th Cir.1994) (Having persuaded the district court that it understands its duty to follow NEPA in reviewing future site-specific programs, judicial estoppel will preclude the [agency] from later arguing that it has no further duty to consider the cumulative impact of [those] programs.). In other words, having acknowledged the significance of a future project through a notice of intent, the agency cannot escape its downstream obligation to consider the impact of the project. We face the same situation as in Northern Alaska Environmental Center. By issuing the notice of intent to prepare an EIS for the Special Study, the government impliedly promised to consider the cumulative effects of the special study with the drawdown project in that EIS. In fact, Reclamation expressly made the same promise to this court, stating in its opening brief that there is no danger that [actions taken as a result of the Special Study] would escape NEPA review. [5] The import of the government's promises is that Reclamation will prepare a document [that] explores the collective impact of the drawdown project and the Special Study. See Blackwood, 161 F.3d at 1215 (rejecting a cumulative effects analysis because no such document was in the offing). As a result, CELP cannot argue that Reclamation is attempting to initiate multiple drawdowns from Lake Roosevelt without ever having to evaluate the ... cumulative environmental impacts of those actions. Native Ecosys. Council v. Dombeck, 304 F.3d 886, 897 (9th Cir.2002). We also note that the drawdown project discussed in the EA involves much smaller diversions of water than the Special Study, which could result in a drawdown of well over 300,000 acre-feet per year. To direct that Reclamation must account for the cumulative effects of the drawdown project and the Special Study in the drawdown project EA would thus be to direct the agency to wag the dog by its tail. For these reasons, and in accordance with Northern Alaska Environmental Center, we conclude that Reclamation's failure to consider the cumulative effects of the Special Study and the drawdown project in the drawdown project EA does not violate NEPA.