Opinion ID: 2538601
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: The Airport's Proposal Is a Project Amenable to ACMP Review.

Text: The issue of how specific a proposal must be before it can be considered a project ready for consistency review under the ACMP is one that underlies numerous claims in this appeal.
When we consider an administrative appeal from a decision rendered by the superior court acting as an intermediate appellate tribunal, we review the agency's determination directly; we do not defer to the superior court's decision. [4] We have identified at least four main standards of review of agency decisions: the `substantial evidence test' for questions of fact; the `reasonable basis test' for questions of law involving agency expertise; the `substitution of judgment test' for questions of law where no expertise is involved; and the `reasonable and not arbitrary test' for review of administrative regulations. [5] The extent to which AS 46.40 and its regulations allow the Division to initiate an ACMP consistency review for a permit that authorizes a broad range of possible activities is a question of law and statutory interpretation not meaningfully implicating agency expertise; we therefore apply the substitution of judgment standard of review. [6]
The long-term wetlands permit application that the Anchorage International Airport submitted to the Corps and to the Division described the types of facilities expected to be developed under the permit: Facilities expected to be required and developed under this permit include AIA infrastructure (runways, taxiways, snow disposal sites, field maintenance facilities, etc.), commercial aviation facilities (cargo handling, freight forwarding, business aircraft servicing, etc.), and general aviation facilities (aircraft parts and repair services, etc.). The application also contained non-exclusive lists of possible uses divided into three categories (runway-dependent, aviation and aviation-related commercial and support use, and uses allowed with special conditions), as well as a description of prohibited uses. The Airport noted in its application that [t]he parcel layouts on the [Airport Layout Plan] are conceptual in that detailed design for each individual area will occur as specific projects are proposed, and the Airport included maps showing typical layouts and sections. The Airport acknowledged that these typical sections are not meant to be inclusive of all potential projects. The Airport also included a map illustrating its currently planned projects within the permit area. Alaska Statute 46.40.210 defines consistency review to mean the evaluation of a proposed project against the standards adopted by the [Alaska Coastal Policy Council] under AS 46.40.040 and a district coastal management program approved by the council under AS 46.40.060. [7] ACE contends that a project must be specific before it can be reviewed for consistency. ACE notes that the legislature directed the Council to develop policies and procedures to determine whether specific proposals for the land and water uses or activities subject to the district coastal program shall be allowed. [8] The Council approved an Office of Management and Budget regulation defining project to be an activity or use that will be located in or may affect the coastal zone ... and that is subject to consistency review under 16 U.S.C. 1456(c), or that requires the issuance of at least one state permit; project includes each phase of a project when a land or water activity is developed or authorized in discrete phases.[ [9] ] ACE asserts that this regulation and the Coastal Management Act contemplate that the consistency review process will be invoked for a `specific proposal' ..., i.e., a proposed `activity or use,' intended to be located in the coastal zone. ACE charges that the Airport did not propose a specific, ready-to-build project, but instead proposed a list of speculative someday possibilities or a vague, non-binding, speculative development plan. ACE argues that the Airport's provision of only a hypothetical development scenario and a virtually open-ended, `summarized' list of projects meant that the Division could not identify, evaluate, and prohibit or mitigate effects since it could only speculate about what these effects might be. Specifically, ACE asserts that the State could not perform the required thorough review of a project and its effects to ensure compliance with the major use and activity standards codified at 6 AAC 80.040.140 and that the Division therefore erred in considering the Airport's proposal. The State counters that the information provided by the Airport was sufficient for public review. The State notes that the Airport submitted a 150-page application, including the coastal project questionnaire, the Corps application, and six appendices documenting the historical and forecasted activities at the airport, the [Federal Aviation Administration (FAA)]-approved layout plan for the airport, the typical sections for proposed development, wetland assessments, the wetland debit/credit methodology, and the activities proposed within the permit area. The State asserts that the permit application addressed the public need for the project, alternatives to development, the environmental impacts of the project and how those would be dealt with, and mitigation to make up for wetlands loss. The Division also had the benefit of information generated during years of collaborative permit planning and debate among the resource agencies, citizen groups, and the Airport. Essentially, then, the question boils down to whether the Division of Governmental Coordination can consider a project to be a Corps permit authorizing dredge and fill activity to support categories of possible runway-dependent and other aviation-related uses (in other words, can the project be airport expansion as a whole), or whether the Division can consider only specific uses or activities that the airport will definitely pursue that would be located on that fill as part of the airport expansion? The Division described the project in its letter initiating the consistency review as a 10-year permit from the U.S. Corps of Engineers to fill up to 5.8 million cubic yards of classified fill into 240 acres of wetlands. When responding to public comments that the Airport's proposal was not specific enough, the Division responded that [t]his project is comparable to a general permit in which the permit details the allowable uses and the manner in which they are to be developed. The [Corps of Engineers's] Public Notice and information provided subsequent to the initial Public Notice provide[ ] adequate detail to conduct the ACMP review. [10] Similarly, the superior court held that a broad definition of activity or use should be applied to project, relying on several of our oil and gas lease sale cases and arguing that an oil and gas lease sale is analogous to airport expansion because it is a very general activity or use encompassing a wide range of possible activities. In Trustees for Alaska v. State, Department of Natural Resources, we held that an oil and gas lease sale constituted a project and thus required an ACMP consistency review because the sale involved leases, which counted as permits under the regulation defining project. [11] Similarly, in Ninilchik Traditional Council v. Noah , we again explained that an oil and gas lease sale had to comply with the ACMP because all `[u]ses and activities' conducted in the coastal zone by state agencies must be consistent with ACMP standards. [12] In Kachemak Bay Conservation Society v. State, Department of Natural Resources, we upheld a consistency review that had been phased and quoted the Department's justification for phasing its review: [i]n oil and gas leasing, it cannot be determined with any specificity or definition at the leasing stage if, where, when, how, or what kind of production might ultimately occur[ ] as the result of leasing.... [13] ACE contends that these cases did not address how much information is needed before an agency can initiate a thorough consistency review, but rather involved whether the ACMP applies at all or whether phasing of the review was permitted. However, as the superior court noted, if an activity is not a project, it is not subject to an ACMP consistency determination, [14] so Trustees for Alaska and Ninilchik are relevant in declaring that the ACMP applies to a broad oil and gas lease sale project. Further, since we addressed in Kachemak Bay the question whether a review of the oil and gas lease sale could be phased, that means that a project existed to be reviewed in that case. We thus have previously accepted reviews of oil and gas lease sale projects, which have at least as much uncertainty concerning actual future development as does Anchorage International Airport's expansion proposal. Given these cases and the volume of information the Airport submitted, we hold that the Airport's broad proposal for airport expansion was a project amenable to ACMP review.