Opinion ID: 148933
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Failure to Assess Cumulative Impacts

Text: Plaintiffs finally contend that the BLM's cumulative impact analysis in the Amendment's EA was insufficient. NEPA requires that where `several actions have a cumulative . . . environmental effect, this consequence must be considered in an EIS.' Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain v. U.S. Forest Serv., 137 F.3d 1372, 1378 (9th Cir.1998) (quoting City of Tenakee Springs v. Clough, 915 F.2d 1308, 1312 (9th Cir.1990)); see 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(c)(3). We also require that an EA fully address cumulative environmental effects or cumulative impacts. See, e.g., Kern v. BLM, 284 F.3d 1062, 1076 (9th Cir.2002) (Given that so many more EAs are prepared than EISs, adequate consideration of cumulative effects requires that EAs address them fully. (quoting Council on Environmental Quality, Considering Cumulative Effects Under the National Environmental Policy Act 4 (Jan.1997), also available at http://ceq.hss.doe.gov/nepa/ccenepa/ ccenepa.htm (last visited June 11, 2010) (emphasis added))). Cumulative impact is the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions . . . . Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time. 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7. Here, the BLM designated an area in which it needed to analyze the Amendment's cumulative impacts (the cumulative effects area). The Pediment/Cortez Hills project is a proposed mining operation located within the cumulative effects area. The BLM acknowledged in the Amendment's EA that the Pediment/Cortez Hills project was a reasonably foreseeable activity. The BLM's knowledge of the Pediment/Cortez Hills project in 2004 can also be reasonably inferred by its December 2005 publication of a Notice of Intent to Prepare an Environmental Impact Statement to Analyze the Proposed Amendment to the Pipeline/South Pipeline Plan of Operations (NVN-067575) for the Cortez Hills Expansion Project. 70 Fed. Reg. 72,308 (Dec. 2, 2005). Therefore, the BLM was required to analyze the cumulative impacts of the Amendment and the Pediment/Cortez Hills project. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7. In a cumulative impact analysis, an agency must take a hard look at all actions. An EA's analysis of cumulative impacts must give a sufficiently detailed catalogue of past, present, and future projects, and provide adequate analysis about how these projects, and differences between the projects, are thought to have impacted the environment. Lands Council, 395 F.3d at 1028. General statements about `possible effects' and `some risk' do not constitute a `hard look' absent a justification regarding why more definitive information could not be provided. Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain, 137 F.3d at 1380. [S]ome quantified or detailed information is required. Without such information, neither the courts nor the public . . . can be assured that the [agency] provided the hard look that it is required to provide. Id. at 1379. Here, the Amendment's EA included a cumulative impacts section that purported to review past, present, and reasonably foreseeable activities in the cumulative effects area, by examining specific resources that may be affected. The EA, however, failed to include the required quantified or detailed information. See id. A comparison of the Amendment's EA with the EAs in Klamath-Siskiyou clearly demonstrates that the BLM's analysis of cumulative impacts in the cumulative effects area did not adequately address the reasonably foreseeable mining activities of the Pediment/Cortez Hills project. See 387 F.3d at 997. A review of the BLM's analysis of the Amendment's cumulative impact on two of these resource sectionsCultural Resources and Native American Religious Concernsis instructive. We note that the bulk of the EA's discussion in these two sections focuses on the effects of the Amendment itself, rather than the combined impacts resulting from the activities of the Amendment with other projects. Although part of the BLM's analysis discusses [t]he effects of the activities to be conducted under the [proposed Amendment] within the cumulative effects study area, only two of the seven paragraphs in these two sections refer to cumulative effects. The majority of the discussion focuses on how effects of the Amendment's additional exploration activities will be avoided or mitigated. The EA's discussion of the Amendment's direct effects in lieu of a discussion of cumulative impacts is inadequate. See id. at 994 (holding that an EA's cumulative impact analysis was inadequate when, among other deficiencies, [a] considerable portion of each section discusses only the direct effects of the project at issue on its own minor watershed). Moreover, although the EA refers to cumulative effects in two paragraphs in the Cultural Resources and Native American Religious Concerns sections, the EA does not, in fact, discuss the existence of any cumulative impacts on these resources. [12] Instead, it concludes that [n]o incremental cumulative effects would occur to cultural resources as a result of the proposed project. To reach this conclusion, the EA reasons that all of the impacts from the expanded exploration activities will be avoided or mitigated and that all [e]xisting, proposed, and reasonably foreseeable activities would avoid or mitigate all known and discovered resources. This type of conclusory analysis can be found throughout the cumulative impacts section. For example, the Amendment's EA devotes a scant three sentences to the cumulative impacts to Water Resources, stating only that [i]mpacts to water resources.. . may include increased sedimentation and potential for erosion. This, despite the discussion earlier in the EA that the Amendment could potentially result in direct impacts to groundwater resources where groundwater is encountered in the drill holes, and the BLM's prediction of significant impacts from dewatering as a result of the Pediment/Cortez Hills project and other Cortez projects previously approved within the cumulative effects area. The EA's vague discussion of cumulative impacts can be found in virtually every subpart of the section. In Klamath-Siskiyou, we rejected as inadequate EAs that listed different environmental concerns (e.g. air quality, water quality, etc.) with checkboxes marked No, indicating that the environmental factor in question would not suffer any cumulative effects. 387 F.3d at 995. A number of these factors, however, were annotated to note that they would or could be impacted by the project, but that [i]mpacts are being avoided by project design. Id. We held that this was insufficient because [t]he EA[s] [are] silent as to the degree that each factor will be impacted and how the project design will reduce or eliminate the identified impacts. Id. We acknowledge that the EA here, unlike the EAs in Klamath-Siskiyou, does describe some of the ways in which the Amendment's impacts will be mitigated. The Amendment's EA contains a description of some mitigation measures, and the BLM State Director imposed additional measures in his April 2005 decision. The EA, however, fails to explain how Cortez will mitigate or avoid impacts to the different resources resulting from the other existing, proposed, or reasonably foreseeable projects, including the Pediment/Cortez Hills project. Further, as in Klamath-Siskiyou, the EA fails to explain the nature of unmitigated impacts of the Amendment's expanded exploration activities with other existing, proposed, and reasonably foreseeable activities. [13] Despite the above deficiencies, Cortez argues that there was no need for a cumulative impact analysis because there are no cumulative impacts to analyze. Cortez suggests that it is not enough to show that potential cumulative impacts were not analyzed; rather, Plaintiffs must prove that cumulative impacts will actually occur. Cortez thus adopts the district court's reasoning, which concluded that the cumulative impacts analysis of the Amendment's EA was sufficient because Plaintiffs failed to identify how [the Pediment/Cortez Hills project] will have a cumulative impact when combined with the HC/CUEP Amendment Project. Although we have not yet precisely articulated the burden that a plaintiff must bear to demonstrate that an agency should have analyzed the cumulative impacts of a proposed project along with other projects, our case law suggests that the burden is not an onerous one. In City of Carmel-By-The-Sea v. United States Department of Transportation, 123 F.3d 1142 (9th Cir. 1997), we observed that the plaintiffs met their burden in raising a cumulative impacts claim under NEPA, despite failing to specify a particular project that would cumulatively impact the environment along with the proposed project. Id. at 1161. We declined to impose a greater burden, noting that the [Defendants] failed first; they did not properly describe other area projects or detail the cumulative impacts of these projects. Id. Moreover, in Klamath-Siskiyou, we noted that when the potential for . . . serious cumulative impacts is apparent, the BLM needed to provide more details of its cumulative impact analysis in an EA before concluding that there were no significant cumulative effects. 387 F.3d at 996. Applying City of Carmel and Klamath-Siskiyou here, we conclude that in order for Plaintiffs to demonstrate that the BLM failed to conduct a sufficient cumulative impact analysis, they need not show what cumulative impacts would occur. To hold otherwise would require the public, rather than the agency, to ascertain the cumulative effects of a proposed action. See id. Such a requirement would thwart one of the twin aims of NEPAto ensure[ ] that the agency will inform the public that it has indeed considered environmental concerns in its decisionmaking process. Balt. Gas & Elec. Co. v. Natural Res. Def. Council, Inc., 462 U.S. 87, 97, 103 S.Ct. 2246, 76 L.Ed.2d 437 (1983) (emphasis added). Instead, we conclude that Plaintiffs must show only the potential for cumulative impact. Here, Plaintiffs more than carry their burden by demonstrating that both the Amendment and the Pediment/Cortez Hills project will directly impact the same resources within the cumulative effects area, and thus have the potential for cumulative impacts. Although not necessary, Plaintiffs bolster their claim of cumulative impacts to Cultural Resources and Native American Religious Concerns by submitting the ethnographic study prepared by the BLM for the original Pediment Deposit mining project. The study predicted that the mine could (1) impede the Western Shoshone's visual and physical access to Mt. Tenabo; (2) decrease the supply of pinyon pine available for harvesting by the Western Shoshone; and (3) disturb Western Shoshone burial sites. These same concerns could be affected by the exploration activities conducted under the Amendment, potentially resulting in a total impact that is greater than that caused by either the Pediment/Cortez Hills project or the Amendment. [14] See Klamath-Siskiyou, 387 F.3d at 994 (Sometimes the total impact from a set of actions may be greater than the sum of the parts. . . . [T]he addition of a small amount here, a small amount there, and still more at another point could add up to something with a much greater impact. . . .). We conclude that BLM's analysis of the cumulative impacts of the proposed Amendment and the Pediment/Cortez Hills project was insufficient, and therefore violated NEPA. NEPA requires the BLM to take a hard look at the cumulative impacts of the Amendment and other projects within the cumulative effects area; this it failed to do. We therefore hold that the district court erred in granting summary judgment for Defendants on this issue and remand to the district court with instructions to grant summary judgment for Plaintiffs and remand to the BLM for further proceedings. In light of our disposition of this issue, we need not address Plaintiffs' argument that the Amendment and the Pediment/Cortez Hills project are cumulative actions under NEPA and should be considered in one comprehensive EIS. See Klamath-Siskiyou, 387 F.3d at 997, 1000 (observing that in light of an insufficient cumulative impact analysis, the court could not determine whether a single EA or EIS was needed); 40 C.F.R. § 1508.25(a)(2). [15] In sum, although we conclude that in the EA, the BLM took a hard look at the direct impacts of the Amendment and that its discussion of reasonable alternatives was proper, we hold that the BLM violated NEPA's mandate by failing to conduct a proper analysis of the cumulative impacts of the Amendment and the Pediment/Cortez Hills project on Western Shoshone cultural resources in the area. We therefore conclude that the BLM's approval of the Amendment was arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. . . . 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).