Opinion ID: 453413
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Project Effects on Water Quality

Text: 24 The district court found that the Chimney Rock draft and final EISs were inadequate because: (1) they failed sufficiently to disclose the impact of the road construction on water quality; (2) they failed to discuss the cumulative impact of the road construction and implementation of the Management Plan on water quality; and (3) they failed adequately to describe what measures would be taken to mitigate adverse impacts on water quality. In addition, the district court found that the draft, supplemental draft, and final EISs prepared for the Blue Creek Management Plan inadequately described measures to mitigate adverse impacts on water quality in Blue Creek. 25 The government does not take issue with the legal standards applied to the EISs by the district court. Rather, it contends that the Chimney Rock draft and final EISs do address erosion and sedimentation problems relative to road construction. It also argues that cumulative sedimentation effects on water quality and fishlife are disclosed in the 1975 Blue Creek EIS for both the Chimney Rock Section and the proposed Management Plan and that it was unnecessary to readdress them in the Chimney Rock EISs. Further, it claims that the EISs do identify specific mitigation measures. 26
27 The draft and final EISs prepared for the Chimney Rock Section do address erosion and sedimentation effects of road construction on Blue Creek. The EISs state that total increased sedimentation would raise the sedimentation yield in Blue Creek by 5.5 percent, resulting in only a small decrease in water quality. The EISs do not, however, address increased sedimentation contributed by road-caused landslides, because of the difficulty inherent in predicting such slope failures. Thus, the potential risks to water quality stemming from the uncertainty in predicting landslides are ignored in the discussion of sedimentation effects. These risks must be revealed if they appear substantial. See State of Alaska v. Andrus, 580 F.2d 465, 473 (D.C.Cir.), vacated in part, 439 U.S. 922, 99 S.Ct. 303, 58 L.Ed.2d 315 (1978). 28 The district court found that landslide risks were substantial and that debris from landslides triggered by the road construction would result in as much as a 500% increase in sediment loads in Blue Creek. These findings are not clearly erroneous. The failure to disclose such risks in the EISs renders them inadequate. 29
30 The district court was correct in finding that the Chimney Rock EISs do not address cumulative sedimentation effects on water quality arising from the proposed road and timber projects. Nor did the district court ignore the 1975 Blue Creek EIS, which the government contends does address cumulative effects. 31 The Blue Creek EIS does not adequately discuss cumulative effects because there the effects were judged as average increases in sediment over a period of years. State water quality standards, however, pertain to individual amounts of turbidity at a particular time and are not written in terms of averages over years. The discussion of cumulative effects in the Blue Creek EIS is therefore inadequate and likely underestimates the actual cumulative effects of both projects on water quality. 32 The district court's finding that the EISs do not contain an adequate discussion of the cumulative effects of both projects on water quality is consequently not clearly erroneous.
33 The applicable regulations require that an EIS discuss [m]eans to mitigate adverse environmental impacts of the proposed action. 40 C.F.R. Sec. 1502.16(h). The Chimney Rock and Blue Creek EISs discuss mitigation measures in part, but neither EIS analyzes the mitigation measures in detail or explains how effective the measures would be. A mere listing of mitigation measures is insufficient to qualify as the reasoned discussion required by NEPA. See Adler v. Lewis, 675 F.2d at 1096. The district court's conclusion that the EISs are inadequate for this reason is sound.