Opinion ID: 2210281
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 11

Heading: boundaries

Text: In the sixth summarized assignment of error, the complaining objectors assert that (1) the director lacked the authority to change the upstream boundary from that requested in the application, and (2) even if the director does have the authority to decrease the length of the stream segment, he exercised that authority in an arbitrary, capricious, and unreasonable manner. In assessing these contentions, we first note that administrative bodies have only that authority specifically conferred upon them by statute or by construction necessary to achieve the purpose of the relevant act. Nape v. Game & Parks Comm., 220 Neb. 883, 374 N.W.2d 46 (1985). We also note that the director and the Department of Water Resources are given broad authority over the appropriation and use of water in Nebraska. See, In re Application U-2, 226 Neb. 594, 413 N.W.2d 290 (1987); Neb.Rev.Stat. § 46-209 (Reissue 1988). Section 46-2,109 empowers the applicant to conduct studies to identify specific stream segments which [it] considers to have a critical need for instream flows. Section 46-2, 110 requires applications for instream flow appropriations to include the locations on the stream at which the need for instream flows begins and ends.... As noted in part II of this opinion, the beginning and ending points of the segment for which the application was requested are the confluence of Bone Creek and the boundary of Ranges 20 and 21 West, in Township 29 North, Brown County, with three different flow rates at different sites along the creek. Several times during the hearing, the applicant's witnesses testified that the application consisted of a single stream segment with flows measured at three points, rather than three separate segments. In granting the application, the director, because of his denial of the requested flow at the upper study site, moved the upstream boundary from the boundary of Ranges 20 and 21 West several miles downstream to the Highway 20 bridge crossing. We have already discussed the criteria for approving an instream flow application set forth in § 46-2,115, including the requirement that the rate and timing of the flow be the minimum necessary to maintain the use. The final sentence of § 46-2,115 permits the director to reduce this rate and timing and thus gives him the ability to grant a reduced appropriation rather than deny the application in its entirety. Section 46-2,118(1) limits application of the instream appropriation to that segment of the stream for which the appropriation is granted and states that the segment shall be defined specifically by the Director ... in the permit. The complaining objectors contend that once the director determined that the requested flow at the upper site should be denied, he should have denied the entire application. Although there is nothing in the statutory language expressly authorizing the director to reduce the length of the stream segment, the complaining objectors' all-or-nothing approach contravenes the policy behind the final sentence of § 46-2,115. By permitting the director to reduce the requested rate and timing of the flow, the Legislature implicitly rejected the complaining objectors' approach in order to avoid the denial of a needed appropriation simply because the application asked for too much. The reason is clear: rather than being forced to deny an excessive appropriation, the director may limit the appropriation to the extent required by the public interest. This way, an instream use that requires protection will not be left unprotected simply because the applicant asked for a flow which the director later determines is greater than that which is the minimum necessary. Here, the director was faced with an application which asked for too much. Under § 46-2,115, the director could have reduced the application's requested rate of flow at the upper site to zero, kept the requested rates for the remainder of the segment at the requested levels, and left the segment boundaries as they were in the application. Instead, he denied the application for the upper site and moved the segment boundary downstream. The net effect is essentially the same, except that the director's method avoids the fiction that the upper reach is part of the protected stream segment. Had the director taken the first approach, the complaining objectors would be in no better position. We therefore hold that when an instream flow application requests different flow rates at different locations along a single stream segment, the denial of the application as to one location is to be viewed as a reduction in the requested rate of flow as authorized by § 46-2, 115. Any reduction in the length of the stream segment occasioned by such a denial is but incidental to the flow reduction, and the director may define the stream segment under § 46-2,118(1) in such a way as to reflect the appropriations as granted. Having thus determined that the director did not exceed his authority in diminishing the length of the stream segment, we turn to the question of whether his determination of the new upstream boundary was arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable. A decision is arbitrary when it is made in disregard of the facts or circumstances and without some basis which would lead a reasonable person to the same conclusion. Percival v. Department of Correctional Servs., 233 Neb. 508, 446 N.W.2d 211 (1989); In re Application of Renzenberger, Inc., 225 Neb. 30, 402 N.W.2d 294 (1987). A capricious decision is one guided by fancy rather than by judgment or settled purpose; such a decision is apt to change suddenly; it is freakish, whimsical, humorsome. United States v. Carmack, 329 U.S. 230, 67 S.Ct. 252, 91 L.Ed. 209 (1946); II The Oxford English Dictionary 869 (2d ed. 1989). The term unreasonable can be applied to an administrative decision only if the evidence presented leaves no room for differences of opinion among reasonable minds. South Cent. Bell Tel. v. Public Serv. Com'n, 702 S.W.2d 447 (Ky.App.1985). The issue, therefore, is whether the record provides the director with a rational basis for choosing the Highway 20 bridge crossing as the upstream boundary of the stream segment. As part of a 1978 study analyzing different instream flow methodologies on the creek, one of the applicant's experts divided the creek into reaches with essentially homogeneous characteristics. The Highway 20 bridge was the upstream boundary of one of these reaches. The applicant's middle study site, the measuring point for the 50 cfs instream appropriation, is in the middle of this reach. Just upstream from the bridge, there are stream improvement structures which the expert indicated produced an environment sufficiently different from that of the reach downstream from the bridge as to require separate analysis, an analysis which was never made. The data from the 1978 study were used in formulating the appropriations requested by the applicant. Since the Highway 20 bridge marks a change between the area represented by the middle site (where the requested 50 cfs flow was approved) and the upper reaches of the stream (where the requested flow was denied), the director's choice of the bridge as the upstream boundary was not arbitrary, capricious, or unreasonable. The complaining objectors caution us not to confuse the segmentation performed as part of the applicant's methodology to study the instream flows with the statutory segment designation provisions. Whether this dichotomy is meaningful is a matter we need not decide, for we can, and do, assure the complaining objectors we are not confusing the two. We merely recognize that some of the reasons which led the applicant's experts to choose the Highway 20 bridge as a boundary also provide a rational basis for the director's choice of the bridge as the upstream boundary of the designated stream segment.