Opinion ID: 458564
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: relief ordered by the district court

Text: 120 As noted, the district court (1) ordered the preparation of a comprehensive EIS on the whole of West Galveston Island; (2) enjoined further work on Section 6; (3) enjoined the Corps from granting additional permits for Section 6; and (4) enjoined the granting of permits for projects on West Galveston Island that are similar to Section 6. We shall consider the propriety of these remedies in turn.
121 It should be clear from what we have said thus far that the relief ordered by the district court is vastly overbroad. The district court ordered the Corps to prepare an EIS covering all past, present and reasonably foreseeable projects that may occur on all of West Galveston Island within the next five years. That order on its face requires the EIS to consider projects that have not yet become concrete proposals. In this respect, it clearly violates the principles announced in Kleppe. By requiring on the general question of development in West Galveston Island the kind of in-depth analysis undertaken in an EIS, the district court has ordered a study that resembles a local zoning or land-use-planning guide. That is not the role that NEPA plays. See Isle of Hope v. U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 646 F.2d 215, 221 (5th Cir.1981) ( '[T]he EIS was not intended to be a substitute community planning device.' ) (quoting Concerned About Trident v. Rumsfeld, 555 F.2d 817, 829 (D.C.Cir.1976)). It is undisputed that there is not a regional plan for federal development of West Galveston Island. It cannot be said, moreover, from the record now before us whether, because of the pendency of several concrete proposals with cumulative or synergistic effects, that the Corps' decision not to prepare a comprehensive EIS is arbitrary and capricious. See Kleppe, 427 U.S. at 410, 96 S.Ct. at 2730. 122 We are convinced, moreover, that the district court erred in ordering the Corps to prepare an EIS at all, regardless of its scope. The court has simply not made the findings necessary to support an order requiring the preparation of an EIS. A court may only order such relief if it finds that the project may have a significant effect on the human environment. See, e.g., Lee, 758 F.2d at 1084; Kreger, 472 F.2d at 466-67. As we have seen, the district court did not expressly make such a finding, and it is not implicit in the court's opinion. See supra Part IV(B). We agree with Mitchell and the Corps that the district court's analysis collapses two steps into one. The court jumped from the finding that the EA is inadequate to the ultimate conclusion that the Corps must prepare an EIS without stopping to consider whether the impacts from Section 6 may be significant. We have never said that deficiencies in an EA can only be cured by preparing an EIS, and that is not the law. See York, 761 F.2d at 1053; Foundation on Economic Trends, 756 F.2d at 154. Absent a finding that Section 6 may have significant impacts on the human environment, the district court should not have ordered the Corps to prepare an EIS. 123 Whether a proposed project may have a significant impact on the human environment is a question of fact, see supra Part III(C), that, in a suit attacking the decision to forego an EIS, should normally be considered first by the district court. In a normal case, we would remand to the district court to consider anew, in the light of our holding, the plaintiffs' request for an order requiring the preparation of an EIS. There is, however, an alternative that we have found especially attractive in environmental cases in which protracted litigation ... can kill projects by delay. Sierra Club v. Sigler, 695 F.2d at 981. We may avoid a remand if  'the record permits only one resolution of the factual issue.'  Id. (quoting Pullman-Standard v. Swint, 456 U.S. 273, 292, 102 S.Ct. 1781, 1792, 72 L.Ed.2d 66 (1982)). We are convinced, precisely because of the Corps' failure adequately to consider cumulative impacts, that it cannot yet be said whether Section 6 will or will not have a significant impact on the environment. The proper remedy in such a case is to remand to the agency to reconsider its FONSI in the light of the proper standards. See York, 761 F.2d at 1053. 16 124 Although we have found that the district court ordered excessive relief, it is clear that the court correctly distilled the deficiencies in the Corps' analysis of the Mitchell project. The court ordered the Corps to consider the cumulative impacts from Section 6 and precisely those actions listed in the CEQ regulation: past, present and reasonably foreseeable actions that will affect the same ecosystem. The only problem is that the regulation requires consideration of those actions in making the threshold determination of significance. The court, on the other hand, ordered that they be considered by the Corps in the kind of detailed analysis that is only required after the threshold of significance is crossed--an EIS. The solution is simply to order the Corps to conduct a cumulative-impacts analysis in compliance with the regulation. The Corps must consider the same impacts identified by the district court. It need not, however, do so in an EIS. 125 What we have said does not preclude the possibility that the Corps may have to prepare an EIS for Section 6 or, if the cumulative-impacts analysis reveals proposals for federal action that are sufficiently related to it, a comprehensive EIS on the whole of West Galveston Island. That determination must await a proper environmental assessment.
126 The district court enjoined Mitchell from working on Section 6 and enjoined the Corps from granting permits for similar projects. In the light of our holding that the district court erred in ordering the preparation of a comprehensive EIS, there is no basis for the second portion of the injunction. In Kleppe, the court noted that, even when a comprehensive, regional EIS is required, it may not be necessary to enjoin all individual projects in the region. 427 U.S. at 414 n. 26, 96 S.Ct. at 2732 n. 26. It follows, as the Court noted, that, if the need to prepare a regional EIS is uncertain, in simple equitable terms there is no basis for an injunction against federal action within the scope of the proposed regional EIS. Id. at 407, 96 S.Ct. at 2729. Clearly, there are no equitable grounds for a broadly based injunction here. See Foundation on Economic Trends, 756 F.2d at 159-60. The portion of the district court's injunction prohibiting the Corps from granting permits for projects similar to Section 6 must be vacated. 127 The situation with respect to Section 6 itself is, of course, markedly different. The district court found that the EA on this project is inadequate. We agree and hold today that the Corps must supplement the EA and re-evaluate the FONSI for Section 6. The injunction against work on the Mitchell project must, therefore, be continued until the project is adequately analyzed.