Opinion ID: 223638
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: timing of the ea

Text: To avoid post hoc agency rationalizations, [p]roper timing is one of NEPA's central themes. Save the Yaak Comm. v. Block, 840 F.2d 714, 718 (9th Cir.1988). The agency must complete an EA before the go-no go stage of a project, Metcalf v. Daley, 214 F.3d 1135, 1142 (9th Cir. 2000) (internal quotation marks omitted), which is to say before making an irreversible and irretrievable commitment of resources, id. at 1143. Reclamation satisfied this requirement, because it undertook no irreversible commitments vis-à-vis the drawdown before the EA was completed. Although CELP argues that the agency irretrievably committed water from the lake to the drawdown project when it procured water use permits from Ecology in December 2008, [1] simply obtaining permits was not tantamount to an irreversible commitment. Rather, Reclamation retain[ed] absolute authority to decide whether water from Lake Roosevelt would be committed to the draw-down project until after it published the final EA and FONSI. Friends of S.E.'s Future v. Morrison, 153 F.3d 1059, 1063 (9th Cir.1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). Under Washington law, secondary use permits authorize Reclamation to use the allocated water without requiring it to do so. See Wash. Rev.Code § 90.03.250 (forbidding any person from us[ing] or divert[ing]... waters until he has received a permit from [Ecology]). The permits allowed Reclamation to keep its options open; the agency remained free not to divert water from Lake Roosevelt if it determined that the drawdown project entailed significant environmental effects. The permits also did not give any other entity the unilateral right to insist on use of the water. See id. § 90.03.310 (noting that, subject to certain conditions, Reclamation possessed the option to assign its water rights). If Reclamation chose not to use the water, rights to the water would revert to the state, see id. § 90.14.130, and any entity wishing to use the water would then need to apply for a new permit. [2] In short, Reclamation clearly retained the authority to change course or to alter the plan it was considering implementing even after receiving the permits, WildWest Inst. v. Bull, 547 F.3d 1162, 1169 (9th Cir.2008), and did not surrender [its] right to prevent diversion of the water, Metcalf, 214 F.3d at 1144. The permits accordingly did not irretrievably commit the agency to use water from Lake Roosevelt for the drawdown project. [3]