Opinion ID: 779237
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Cumulative effects under NEPA

Text: 22 Plaintiffs argue that the Forest Service violated NEPA by failing to consider the cumulative effects of its multiple decisions to waive road density standards for most, or all, Gallatin II Timber Sale Program sales. This argument may be understood to encompass two objections. See Kleppe v. Sierra Club, 427 U.S. 390, 408-09, 96 S.Ct. 2718, 49 L.Ed.2d 576 (1976). First, it amounts to an attack upon the decision of the Forest Service not to prepare one comprehensive environmental review for all road density amendments in the Gallatin Forest proposed under the Gallatin II Timber Sale Program. Second, the argument may be interpreted as a challenge to the sufficiency of the EA prepared by the Forest Service for the Darroch-Eagle sale. 23
24 NEPA requires the Forest Service to prepare an EA to determine whether its proposed action will have a significant effect on the environment. See 40 C.F.R. § 1501.4 (2001); Metcalf, 214 F.3d at 1142. If the EA reveals that the proposed action will significantly affect the environment, the agency must prepare an EIS. See 40 C.F.R. §§ 1501.4, 1508.9 (2001). Here, the Forest Service prepared an EA for the Darroch-Eagle timber sale alone and concluded that the sale would not significantly affect the environment. 25 Plaintiffs argue that the Forest Service was required to issue one comprehensive environmental review document considering, in a coordinated fashion, whether to go forward with all Gallatin II road density amendments. A single NEPA review document is required for distinct projects when there is a single proposal governing the projects, see Kleppe, 427 U.S. at 399, 96 S.Ct. 2718, or when the projects are connected, `cumulative, or similar actions under the regulations implementing NEPA. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25 (2001); 1 see also Kleppe, 427 U.S. at 410, 96 S.Ct. 2718. 26 Here, as discussed above with respect to the Kempff memorandum, supra at pp. 892-93, there is no Gallatin II-wide proposal to amend road density standards; rather, each timber sale proposal includes its own recommendation to amend the standard, which is evaluated on a sale-by-sale basis in each EA. Though the sales are related in a broad sense, with each contributing money toward the purchase of private lands under the land consolidation program crafted by Congress, each sale is conducted separately and each may go forward without the others. The Forest Service's decision to treat the amendments as part of separate proposals was not arbitrary. 27 Plaintiffs can nonetheless prevail on their claim that the Forest Service should have issued a single EA or EIS for all Gallatin II road density amendments if they can show that such amendments are connected, cumulative, or similar actions under 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25. See Wetlands Action Network v. United States Army Corps of Eng'rs, 222 F.3d 1105, 1118 (9th Cir.2000). Although federal agencies are given considerable discretion to define the scope of NEPA review, connected, cumulative, and similar actions must be considered together to prevent an agency from dividing a project into multiple `actions,' each of which individually has an insignificant environmental impact, but which collectively have a substantial impact. Id. (quoting Thomas v. Peterson, 753 F.2d 754, 758 (9th Cir.1985)). 28 To prevail, plaintiffs, must show that the Forest Service was arbitrary and capricious in failing to prepare one comprehensive environmental statement. Kleppe, 427 U.S. at 412, 96 S.Ct. 2718. The Supreme Court has emphasized that: 29 The determination of the region, if any, with respect to which a comprehensive statement is necessary requires the weighing of a number of relevant factors, including the extent of the interrelationship among proposed actions and practical considerations of feasibility. Resolving these issues requires a high level of technical expertise and is properly left to the informed discretion of the responsible federal agencies. Absent a showing of arbitrary action, we must assume that the agencies have exercised this discretion appropriately. 30 Id. (citation omitted). 31 We apply an independent utility test to determine whether multiple actions are connected so as to require an agency to consider them in a single NEPA review. Wetlands Action Network, 222 F.3d at 1118. Where each of two projects would have taken place with or without the other, each has independent utility and the two are not considered connected actions. Id. Here, each Gallatin II timber sale has independent utility in that each contributes separately to the fund established by Congress to purchase private lands, and each will go forward without the others. Thus, the timber sales (and, perforce, the timber sale amendments) do not meet this circuit's test for connected actions. 32 Whether the timber sale amendments should be considered cumulative actions under the regulations is a closer call. Cumulative actions are those which when viewed with other proposed actions have cumulatively significant impacts. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(2) (2001). This Court has required the Forest Service to analyze five distinct timber sales in a single NEPA analysis where the five sales were located in the same watershed, were part of a single timber salvage project, were announced simultaneously, and were reasonably foreseeable. Blue Mountains, 161 F.3d at 1215 (9th Cir.1998). In doing so, we held that the sales raise substantial questions that they will result in significant environmental impacts. Id. 33 Here, we emphasize that the actions purportedly required to be analyzed together in this case are not the Gallatin II sales themselves, but the road density waivers that plaintiffs foresee being adopted in connection with each sale. As discussed above with respect to the Kempff memorandum, the road density amendments are not governed by a single proposal. The Forest Service will make the decision to adopt each amendment separately, over a period of time, not together as were the Blue Mountains timber salvage sales decisions. See id. at 1215 (all five sales were disclosed by name to a coalition of logging companies, along with estimated sale quantities and timelines even before the... EA was completed). Nothing in the record suggests that the Forest Service's goal was to segment review of the road density amendments so as to minimize their seeming cumulative impact. See Churchill County v. Norton, 276 F.3d 1060, 1079 (9th Cir.2002). We cannot say, on the record before us, that the series of road density amendments are cumulative actions under Section 1508.25(a)(2) so as to require their consideration together in a single NEPA review document.
34 As discussed above, NEPA does not require that federal agencies always evaluate the feasibility of separate proposed projects in a single, comprehensive EIS. In contrast, NEPA always requires that an environmental analysis for a single project consider the cumulative impacts of that project together with past, present and reasonably foreseeable future actions. See 40 C.F.R. §§ 1508.7, 1508.25, 1508.27(b)(7) (2001); Hall v. Norton, 266 F.3d 969, 978 (9th Cir.2001); Kern v. United States Bureau of Land Management, 284 F.3d 1062, 1075-76 (9th Cir.2002). Cumulative impact is the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, or reasonably foreseeable future actions.  40 C.F.R. §§ 1508.7 (2001) (emphasis added). CEQ regulations specifically admonish agencies that cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. Id. 35 We have recognized that even EAs, the less comprehensive of the two environmental reports envisioned by NEPA, must in some circumstances include an analysis of the cumulative impacts of a project. See Kern, 284 F.3d at 1078; 40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a) (2001). An EA [s]hall include brief discussions of the need for the proposal, of alternatives as required by section 102(2)(E) [of NEPA], of the environmental impacts of the proposed action and alternatives, and a listing of agencies and persons consulted. Id. at § 1508.9(b). An EA may be deficient if it fails to include a cumulative impact analysis or to tier to an EIS that reflects such an analysis. See Kern, 284 F.3d at 1077; Hall v. Norton, 266 F.3d at 978; Blue Mountains, 161 F.3d at 1214; Idaho Sporting Congress, 137 F.3d at 1152 (9th Cir.1998). 36 The importance of ensuring that EAs consider the additive effect of many incremental environmental encroachments is clear. [I]n a typical year, 45,000 EAs are prepared compared to 450 EISs.... Given that so many more EAs are prepared than EISs, adequate consideration of cumulative effects requires that EAs address them fully.  Kern, 284 F.3d at 1076 (emphasis in original) (quoting Council on Environmental Quality, Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act at 4, January 1997). As we have previously emphasized when considering the sufficiency of a timber sale EA, without a consideration of individually minor but cumulatively significant effects it would be easy to underestimate the cumulative impacts of the timber sales ..., and of other reasonably foreseeable future actions, on the [environment]. Id. at 1078. 37 Here, the EA for the Darroch-Eagle sale does contain a section discussing the cumulative effects of some reasonably foreseeable future actions to be taken in the area around the sale. It does not, however, include the other Gallatin II road density amendments among these reasonably foreseeable future actions. As a result, the Forest Service does not analyze what, if any, environmental impacts the Darroch-Eagle road density amendment might have in combination with the contemplated road density amendments in the other Gallatin II sales. This omission violates NEPA. 2 38 The future road amendments are certainly reasonably foreseeable within the meaning of 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7, as illustrated by the Kempff memorandum and the various amendment proposals in the record. The Kempff memorandum evidences a decision to consider these amendments seriously with each Gallatin II timber sale. The Forest Service repeatedly acknowledges in the record that many road density amendments will be required to implement the Gallatin II timber sales, and the record contains several of these proposals. 39 Moreover, the road density amendments may have cumulative impacts. All of the sales are proposed to occur within the next two years or so, in order to comply with a December 31, 2003, deadline for providing funds for the purchase of land under the Gallatin Land Consolidation Act. All are proposed for the same national forest and will effect separate but additive changes to the density of roads within that geographic area. Because the amendments are reasonably foreseeable and may have cumulative impacts within the Gallatin National Forest, the Forest Service has a duty to consider them in its analysis of impacts within the Darroch-Eagle EA. See 40 C.F.R. §§ 1508.25, 1508.7 (2001); Kern, 284 F.3d at 1078-79 (requiring the BLM to consider all reasonably foreseeable future actions with an impact on the resource being managed, including future timber sales proposed within the same district, as part of a cumulative impacts analysis within an EA); City of Tenakee Springs v. Clough, 915 F.2d 1308, 1313 (9th Cir.1990) (granting a preliminary injunction halting logging because the Forest Service failed to analyze the cumulative impacts of a proposed timber sale together with four other proposed sales within the Tongass National Forest). 40 The Forest Service argues that it need not consider the other road density amendments within the Darroch-Eagle EA because the amendments are spread throughout the Gallatin National Forest. We disagree. The national forest was the geographic unit within which the Forest Service chose to set forth binding road density standards in the Forest Plan. All of these sales are proposed within the Gallatin National Forest and will necessarily have additive effects within that management unit. Unless the cumulative impacts of these amendments are subject to analysis even though distantly spaced throughout the Forest, the Forest Service will be free to amend road density standards throughout the forest piecemeal, without ever having to evaluate the amendments' cumulative environmental impacts. NEPA does not permit this, but rather requires the assessment of the cumulative impact of individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. 3 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7 (2001). 41 NEPA requires an EA that analyzes the cumulative impacts of all reasonably foreseeable future road density amendments in the Gallatin National Forest. We therefore hold that the district court erred in granting summary judgment to defendants on this claim.