Opinion ID: 501787
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Issues Where the Secretary Has Eliminated Minimum National Environmental Standards (Four Issues)

Text: 92 The first cluster of standing challenges includes four instances in which NWF has challenged Secretary Watt's elimination of minimum national standards governing various aspects of surface mining. These regulations involve (1) the contemporaneous reclamation of mined land; (2) the design of earth terraces on restored land; (3) the exemption from the approximate original contour requirement of lands featuring unusually thick or thin overburden; and (4) the information required from those seeking permits for activities that could unsettle alluvial valley floors. 8 In each of these areas, the Secretary has eliminated regulations previously prescribed as minimum standards for implementing the broadly worded provisions of the Act. These regulatory floors were to guide federal enforcement or, in the event that states accepted the Act's invitation to assume regulatory authority, state enforcement. 93 The first NWF issue in this cluster stems from the requirement imposed by Sec. 515(b)(16) that mine operators reclaim land as contemporaneously as practicable [to the] mining operations. In 1979, then-Secretary Andrus promulgated specific time and distance standards for such backfilling and grading, see 30 C.F.R. Sec. 816.101, but four years later, Secretary Watt repealed those standards, concluding that  'contemporaneous reclamation' is a relative term which must be interpreted by each State on the basis of the mining conditions in its territory. 48 FED.REG. 23357-58 (1983). 94 The second issue relates to the requirement of Sec. 515(b)(3) that land be restored to its approximate original contour. The regulations adopted in 1979 attached numerical benchmarks to this broad requirement, requiring terraces to be built with bench widths less than 20 feet and slopes between benches at less than a 50 degree angle. Secretary Watt's revisions, however, abandoned maximum bench widths and outslope angles, leaving to regulatory authorities the decision on a case-by-case basis whether to approve given terrace characteristics. 95 The third issue involves the exemption in Sec. 515(b)(3) from the requirement that lands be returned to their approximate original contour. The 1979 regulations provided numerical specifications for grants of a variance from the approximate original contour requirement; but in 1983, Secretary Watt eliminated the numerical standards, allowing variances whenever the mine operator asserts that spoil is either insufficient or more than sufficient to restore land to its approximate original contour. 30 C.F.R. Sec. 816.104-105 (1986). 96 The fourth issue involves the information required of those seeking permits for operations that might affect alluvial valley floors. Section 515(b)(10)(F) requires surface coal mining operations to preserve throughout the mining and reclamation process the essentially hydrologic functions of alluvial valley floors in the arid and semi-arid areas of the country. The original regulations contained precise specifications on the information needed in a permit application when a mine operator's proposed operations might affect an alluvial valley floor, but in 1983, Secretary Watt withdrew the enumeration of this technical data, information and analysis. Instead, he required simply that generally ... sufficient information be submitted to enable the regulatory authority to make the necessary determinations. 48 FED.REG. 29814 (1983). 97 With regard to each of these issues, NWF alleges that it suffers at the very least a threat of injury from the Secretary's deletion of the regulatory minimums. In response, Industry suggests that NWF has merely alleged a statutory violation without proffering a viable claim of specific injury. See Motion to Remand Certain Issues With Direction to Dismiss for Want of Jurisdiction and Ripeness (hereinafter Brief for Industry), at 12-15. Insofar as the first prong of the standing requirement, injury in fact, is concerned, we, however, are satisfied that NWF's affidavits now provide sufficient allegations of personalized injury to satisfy the Sierra Club and SCRAP standards for injury in fact in environmental cases. These affidavits provide sufficient details describing threatened injuries. Typically, NWF's affiants live in communities where surface mining operations have occurred. In addition to alleging past environmental degradation, these affiants describe in substantial detail the injuries they fear from ongoing and future mining operations. Those affiants addressing the contemporaneous reclamation, terracing and thick and thin overburden requirements allege that the new regulations permit greater deviance from the goal of approximating the original contour of the mined land, a major environmental goal of the Act. Those affiants addressing the deletion of specific information requirements regarding alluvial valley floors in permit applications allege that this policy will create an increased danger of degrading water supplies in the West. 98 Industry suggests that these affidavits are inadequate for failure to track the sometimes hypertechnical language of the statute, see, e.g., Brief for Industry at 23 (Neither [affiant] so much as mentions ... the thick overburden exemption), or for failure to describe with precision the harms they fear. See, e.g., id. at 21 ([n]either points to any specific mine or terrace, and each offers only a general and irrelevant observation that their aesthetic enjoyment would be diminished....). We disagree. Unyielding insistence on parroting the arcane technicalities of the law or regulations, however, would turn the standing requirement into a barrier impeding all but mining engineers from challenging this legislation. NWF's allegations of injury in these affidavits, far from being an ingenious academic exercise in the conceivable, see SCRAP, 412 U.S. at 688, 93 S.Ct. at 2416, are the allegations of real people personally concerned about constitutionally-sufficient environmental, recreational, or aesthetic injuries. In view of the specificity of the numerous allegations affiants make concerning threatened deviations from reclaiming land to its original contour, those allegations are reasonably read to address the technical regulations which implement that important requirement. We therefore wholly concur in Judge Flannery's evaluation of the adequacy of these allegations to establish injury in fact with respect to each of these regulations. See Findings on Standing at 6-12, 25-26. 99 The more difficult issue regarding these four regulations is whether NWF has satisfactorily established that the injuries of which it complains are fairly traceable to the challenged action. Industry contends in each instance that the injuries cited in NWF's affidavits are merely speculative. Specifically, it makes three distinct arguments. First, Industry argues that because individual states may choose to adhere to the initial regulatory minimums set forth in 1979, any fear of laxer standards is premature. Second, it argues that the new, more nebulous regulations could still be interpreted so as to conform to, or even exceed, the previous minimum standards. Third, it maintains that threatened injury can arise only after a government agency makes a future discretionary decision that may be either favorable or unfavorable to the plaintiff. See Brief for Industry at 10-11. 100 We disagree with each of these arguments. At the outset, we note that Industry's contentions as to the speculative nature of NWF's challenge relate as much to ripeness as they do to causation; we therefore address each of Industry's contentions in turn with an eye to ripeness as well as to standing doctrine. 101 Industry's first argument--that it is conceivable that individual states will continue to apply the older, 1979 regulations with their precise minimum standards--does not stand up. With regard to each regulation, NWF has identified at least one plaintiff living in a state directly governed by Secretary Watt's deletion of the 1979 standards. Specifically, NWF has identified at least one of its members who lives in a state in which the federal government enforces surface-mining standards because the lands in question are federal ones, or because the state has not accepted the federal invitation to assume responsibility for enforcement. Although NWF's 70 affidavits offer a number of examples upon which standing might be found on these four issues, we need only note that several plaintiffs identified by NWF live in Tennessee, a state in which the federal government enforces surface-mining standards. Theses affiants allege threatened injuries stemming from the relaxation of the federal government's approximate original contour standards. See, e.g., Hollis Aff.; Little Aff.; Miller Aff.; Smiddy Aff.; S. Williams Aff. Similarly, Neil McBride, also a Tennessee resident, alleges injuries from the diminution of permit information required by the federal government for activities that could harm alluvial valley floors. See McBride Aff. 102 Thus, the first argument put forth by Industry--that some cooperating states may choose to retain or even exceed the 1979 standards--is irrelevant, for NWF has identified plaintiffs directly governed by the Secretary's new regulations. 9 103 As its second causation/ripeness argument, Industry repeatedly asserts that the newer regulations remain susceptible to interpretive constructions in which they would be every bit as stringent as the more specific 1979 standards, see, e.g., Brief for Industry at 18-20, 21, 22, 33. It strains credulity, however, to suggest that the Secretary, in abandoning minimum standards, sought to encourage mining concerns to exceed the previous regulatory floors. Mining concerns were, after all, free to undertake extra precautions under the 1979 regulations; the paramount impact of the 1983 deletions is to position Industry to do less rather than more to restore mined land. 104 Although we do not read the Act to require that every statutory prescription be fleshed out by numerical standards, see, e.g., infra section III-C-3, we do regard Congress' admonitions--notably those expressed in the House Report--regarding the need for specific regulations as supporting the inference that a causal connection exists between deletion of regulatory specifics and adverse environmental effects. And while Congress cannot create standing on its own, it can provide legislative assessments which courts can credit in making standing determinations. See Autolog Corp. v. Regan, 731 F.2d 25, 31 (D.C.Cir.1984) (we must give great weight to this congressional finding [of causation] in our standing inquiry); see also Animal Welfare Inst. v. Kreps, 561 F.2d 1002, 1010 (D.C.Cir.1977), cert. denied sub nom. Fouke Co. v. Animal Welfare Inst., 434 U.S. 1013, 98 S.Ct. 726, 54 L.Ed.2d 756 (1978) (deferring to congressional determination that causation existed as a matter of law). Congress' suggestion here that the deletion of minimum standards might lead to lessened protection is just such a legislative assessment. 105 Industry's third contention is that NWF cannot challenge the Secretary's relaxed regulations until a decision unfavorable to plaintiffs is actually made under them. In support of this contention, Industry cites a string of cases from the Supreme Court and this circuit purportedly saying that the existence of an intervening discretionary authority blocks standing and/or ripeness. See Brief for Industry at 11 n. 11. Industry's cases, however, arise in a very different context. They all involve parties seeking to overturn rules or enactments before such enactments have been enforced against them personally. See, e.g., Brown v. Hotel Employees, 468 U.S. 491, 104 S.Ct. 3179, 82 L.Ed.2d 373 (1984); Pacific Gas & Elec. v. Energy Resources Conservation & Dev. Comm'n, 461 U.S. 190, 103 S.Ct. 1713, 75 L.Ed.2d 752 (1983); International Longshoremen's & Warehousemen's Union v. Boyd, 347 U.S. 222, 74 S.Ct. 447, 98 L.Ed. 650 (1954); Cabais v. Egger, 690 F.2d 234 (D.C.Cir.1982). By contrast, NWF here challenges currently operative rules that require no act of administrative discretion to affect environmentalist plaintiffs. Cf. Japan Whaling Ass'n, 478 U.S. 221, 106 S.Ct. 2860, 92 L.Ed.2d 166 (standing found where harm to whalewatchers from failure to sanction Japan for whale-harvesting could ensue without any further governmental action). 106 In any event, Industry's argument overlooks fundamental principles of ripeness analysis. Insofar as the constitutional dimensions of the ripeness requirement are concerned, a clear case or controversy exists here, given the significant likelihood of injury to NWF's members in states, such as Tennessee, where the federal government is the direct regulatory authority. See, e.g., Babbitt v. United Farm Workers National Union, 442 U.S. 289, 298, 99 S.Ct. 2301, 2308, 60 L.Ed.2d 895 (1979) ([a] plaintiff who challenges a statute must demonstrate a realistic danger of sustaining a direct injury as a result of the statute's operation or enforcement). Nor do the prudential components of the ripeness requirement impede NWF's claim, in light of Congress' express intent that those suits challenging the surface mining regulations be judged under the broadest standing requirements enunciated by the U.S. Supreme Court. See H.R.REP. NO. 218, 95th Cong., 1st Sess. 90 (1977), reprinted in 1977 U.S.CODE CONG. & ADMIN.NEWS 593, 622. 10 107 For the foregoing reasons, we regard the threat to NWF's members as sufficiently real and immediate to show an existing controversy, see Blum v. Yaretsky, 457 U.S. 991, 1000, 102 S.Ct. 2777, 2784, 73 L.Ed.2d 534 (1982), and we therefore find that NWF has standing to challenge these four regulations. 11 108 2. Issues Where the Challenge to Standing Focuses on the Adequacy of Affidavits (Fourteen Issues) 109 The primary focus of Industry's remaining 14 challenges to standing is on the adequacy of NWF's affidavits in alleging an injury in fact. 110 We quickly dispose of six of these challenges; these involve (1) the Secretary's determination of the proper amount of the bond that underground mining operations must post; (2) the Secretary's endorsement of incremental and phased bonding, both of which NWF alleges allow initial bonds posted by mining operations to fall below the figure established by the statute; (3) the Secretary's interpretation of the scope of the valid existing rights exception to the general SMCRA prohibition of surface mining on certain federal lands; (4) the Secretary's determination that the exception allowing surface mining on federal lands which have no significant recreational, timber, economic or other values which may be incompatible with surface mining operations, see SMCRA Sec. 522(e)(2), allows surface mining in all circumstances except where incompatibility is permanent and reclamation is impossible; (5) the Secretary's decision to eliminate two specific design criteria for dry waste piles, which had been set forth pursuant to the statutory requirement in SMCRA Sec. 515(f) that he establish standards and criteria for waste piles; and (6) the Secretary's creation of what amounts to a first-in-time, first-in-right exception to the general requirement that surface mine operators replace the water supply of property owners whose supply was contaminated or interrupted as a result of the mining operation. 12 111 Industry's objections to standing on these issues, as we have noted, generally challenge NWF's allegations of injury in fact. These assertions are without merit. As with the three issues discussed earlier on which Industry conceded standing, see supra, NWF's affidavits here allege injury and make out highly plausible lines of causation leading from the Secretary's acts to the injury. 112 Industry attempts to impugn NWF's affidavits, mostly by disaggregating each allegation so as to make it appear to hinge on the chance occurrence of multiple unlikely contingencies. See, e.g., Brief for Industry at 24 (contending that absence of a subsidence bond could produce damage only if five events coincided, and therefore describing the alleged injury as remote and speculative); see also id. at 41-44 (deploying same form of argumentation with regard to validly existing rights, significant values in national forests, and junior water rights). Industry's attack falters on Autolog Corp., like this a case involving a motion for summary judgment for want of standing; in Autolog, we emphasized that it is not the length of the chain of causation, but rather its plausibility, that is dispositive in standing analysis. Industry's attempt to blend its substantive defense of the merits of the Secretary's actions into its standing argument, see, e.g., Brief for Industry at 24 (suggesting that the incremental bonding regulations are unobjectionable because they mirror a similarly flexible provision in the 1979 regulations), likewise cannot overcome NWF's allegations of injuries sufficient to satisfy the standing requirement. 13 113 Industry's arguments with reference to NWF's challenges to the remaining eight issues make more colorable contentions, and we therefore treat them individually. 114
115 NWF's challenge here is to the Secretary's delegation to a state agency of his duty to approve mine plans on federal lands. Under the Act, as the district court noted, a state may agree to regulate mining operations on federal land, but the Act also provides that [n]othing in this subsection shall be construed as authorizing the Secretary to delegate to the States his duty to approve mining plans on Federal lands. SMCRA Sec. 523(c). 14 116 The district court concluded that NWF had standing to challenge this delegation. See Findings on Standing, at 18-19. On appeal, Industry focuses its challenge to standing entirely upon the affidavit of Colorado residents Timothy and Susan Brater, upon which the district court had heavily relied. The Braters had alleged injury on the ground that they had sued to challenge the Secretary's decision to issue a permit to a nearby mine, but that the Secretary had moved to dismiss on the ground that he no longer has authority with respect to the mine, having delegated it to the state of Colorado under a cooperative agreement. Industry now alleges that because the Braters' petition has already been heard twice by the Secretary in previous chapters of the dispute, the Braters lose no substantive or procedural rights as a result of the delegation, and thus NWF, to which the Braters belong, has no standing. See Brief for Industry at 26. 117 We disagree. Setting aside the issue of whether the Braters have lost a procedural right, Industry wholly fails to counter NWF's separate contention that its affiants lose a distinctive federal substantive right by dint of the delegation to the states: the right to have an environmental impact statement (EIS) prepared. Affiant Arthur Hayes fears that his ability to evaluate and oppose future mining will be impaired in the absence of an EIS, see Hayes Aff., and affiants Edward Dobson, Patty Kluver, and Wallace McRae voice similar concerns. See Dobson Aff., Kluver Aff., McRae Aff. We conclude that, for affiants voicing environmental concerns like those in the aforementioned affidavits, the elimination of the opportunity to see and use an EIS prepared under federal law does constitute a constitutionally sufficient injury on which to ground standing. See Action Alliance of Senior Citizens v. Heckler, 789 F.2d 931, 937-39 (D.C.Cir.1986) (denial of access to government-provided information regarding services available to the elderly held a sufficient injury on which to ground standing); Cady v. Morton, 527 F.2d 786, 790 (9th Cir.1975) (absence of an EIS constitutes injury on the basis of which plaintiffs could sue for violation of National Environmental Policy Act of 1969 (NEPA)); Scientists' Inst. for Pub. Information, Inc. v. Atomic Energy Comm'n, 481 F.2d 1079, 1087 n. 29 (D.C.Cir.1973) (agency's decision not to draft a NEPA statement caused injury in fact satisfying Sierra Club test); National Org. for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML) v. United States Dep't of State, 452 F.Supp. 1226, 1230 (D.D.C.1978) (citing Scientists' Inst. and concluding that NORML had alleged a sufficient informational interest under NEPA in challenging agencies' failure to prepare and consider an EIS with respect to United States participation in herbicide spraying of marijuana plants); Natural Resources Defense Council v. Securities and Exch. Comm'n, 389 F.Supp. 689, 698 (D.D.C.1974) (failure of SEC to make public disclosure of certain information held sufficient injury to support plaintiffs' standing to sue). 118
119 Under this heading, NWF challenges the Secretary's interpretation of the jurisdictional scope of the Act. The Act, in Sec. 701(28), states that it covers surface coal mining operations. In 1983, however, the Secretary excluded from his definition of that term facilities that process coal but do not separate coal from its impurities. Additionally, the Secretary defined that statutory term to exclude off-site facilities beyond a certain distance from a mining operation. 15 120 The district court concluded that the affidavits produced by NWF adequately alleged standing. See Findings on Standing, at 20-21 (citing McBride Aff.; Fretwell Aff.). Industry challenges this determination, arguing that the affiants in question did not spell out the types of off-site operations they fear with sufficient specificity to cover all the contingencies NWF now raises. See Brief for Industry at 27. We disagree. Contrary to Industry's assertions, the McBride affidavit, for example, does voice concern about off-site injuries, citing coal crushing tipples and rail loadout facilities alongside two Tennessee highways. See McBride Aff. at 5. 121 More generally, as in its arguments about NWF's standing to challenge the regulations imposing minimum environmental standards, Industry adopts too parsimonious a reading of the standing requirement, one too hypertechnical to be supportable. Both the above-named affiants, as well as others, see, e.g., Combs Aff., allege ongoing harms stemming from the failure to restrict certain off-site operations. Standing on this issue does not require meticulous specificity, or the affiants' intimate familiarity with operations on neighboring land. The core issue here is the scope of jurisdiction over offsite facilities, an issue the affiants identified by the district court surely have standing to raise. In attempting to disaggregate this issue so as to require NWF to name plaintiffs suffering from every conceivable side-effect of the Secretary's narrower conception of the Act's jurisdiction, Industry would turn the standing requirement from a means of identifying genuine controversies into a barrier blocking challenges by all but the most greviously afflicted plaintiffs. 122
123 NWF here challenges the Secretary's interpretation of Sec. 515(b)(5) of the Act, which provides that coal operators must carefully remove and replace topsoil displaced by their activities. The Secretary in 1983 issued a regulation allowing the storage on host soil of topsoil salvaged from adjacent mining activities, an interpretation NWF contends will damage the topsoil. 16 124 The district court concluded that NWF had standing to bring this challenge, see Findings on Standing, at 22-23 (citing Smith Aff.). Industry now argues before us that the district court overlooked the existence of other regulations that impose protective conditions, thereby limiting possible harm stemming from the newer regulations. This argument, however, goes not to standing, but to the substantive validity of the new regulations. 125 Industry also challenges as speculative the Smith affidavit upon which the district court relied. See, e.g., Brief for Industry at 29 (concluding that Ms. Smith would be injured only upon the chance occurrence of eight events, one of which it deems to have only a 0.8% chance of occurring). We disagree; Ms. Smith alleged injury with sufficient plausibility and specificity when she asserted: 126 I am concerned that since our farmland contains prime farmland soils located over [a lessee coal company's] mineral holdings that our farming productivity will suffer as a result of [the company's] future mine. I am especially concerned with the surface impacts and disturbances that the future mine may produce, particularly related to the redistribution and spreading of additional soils from the disturbed area over non-disturbed topsoil. 127 See Smith Aff. at p 4 (emphasis added). We again recall this court's caution in Autolog Corp., 731 F.2d at 31, that we are concerned ... not with the length of the chain of causation, but with the plausibility of each of the links that comprise the chain. The Smith affidavit evinces an altogether reasonable fear of threatened harm. Accordingly, we conclude that NWF has standing to challenge this regulation. 128
129 Under the SMCRA, prime farmland, after a mining operation, generally must be restored to crop-producing land at 100% of the land's pre-mining productivity. NWF here challenges a regulation promulgated by Secretary Watt that creates an exception to this rule; the regulation permits as an acceptable post-mining use of prime farmland last-cut lakes, which are permanent impoundments of water. 17 130 The district court, observing that NWF had named individuals alleging both aesthetic injury and economic harm, concluded that NWF had standing to challenge this regulation. See Findings on Standing, at 23-24. Industry's response is two-fold: it argues, first, that impoundments were permitted under the original regulations under some circumstances, and second, that presuming specific injury to an individual is unduly speculative. 131 We disagree with each of these contentions. First, while the original regulations may not have categorically proscribed any impoundments of water, Secretary Watt's regulation indisputably made such impoundments more likely than previously, and the permissibility of that policy change is an issue we address on the merits, not in the context of standing. We also disagree with Industry's dismissive treatment of NWF's specific allegations. Affiant Janis King, for example, lives on, rents and farms land classified as prime farmland; her property is adjacent to a strip of land mined by a nearby company. The company has left last-cut impoundments on the neighboring land and failed to return it to prime farmland. Ms. King describes at some length the interference posed by such impoundments to the operation of her seed corn business and to her aesthetic interests, which she has standing to raise under Sierra Club. See King Aff. Accordingly, we conclude on this issue that NWF has standing. 132
133 NWF here challenges an exception authorized by Secretary Watt to the rule that prime farmland be completely restored, one that would exempt support facilities associated with surface mining operations and underground mining operations. The district court concluded that NWF had standing. See Findings on Standing, at 24-25. 18 134 Industry's argument on appeal is that the affidavit on which the district court relied, that of Eleanor Smith, is inapposite to the challenge lodged by NWF. Industry contends that although Ms. Smith refers only to support facilities associated with underground mining, NWF's challenge is specifically addressed to support facilities associated with surface mines. See Brief of NWF as Appellees and Appellee-Intervenors at 43-44 & n.. NWF replies that although Ms. Smith refers to underground mining, her affidavit leaves open the possibility that surface as well as underground mining may be covered by the lease on her property. See Opposition of NWF to Industry's Motion to Remand at 32 & n. 34. We agree. The Smith affidavit states a broad concern with the effects of surface mining in her area, see Smith Aff. at paragraphs 3, 8. In light of this fact, we cannot conclude that her lease permits only underground mining. We therefore conclude that her affidavit is sufficient to establish NWF's standing with respect to this issue. 135
136 Under the SMCRA, mining operators are expected generally to restore their land to its approximate original contour. The Act, however, grants a limited variance for lands whose slope exceeds 20 degrees. In his 1983 regulations, however, Secretary Watt broadened this variance to include lands whose slope was below 20 degrees, a step NWF has challenged as inconsistent with Congress' intent that mined lands be returned to a state that closely resemble[s] its pre-mining condition. See SMCRA Sec. 701(2). 19 137 The district court concluded that NWF had standing to challenge this variance, see Findings on Standing, at 26-28, a finding Industry protests. It focuses upon the affidavit of Granville Burchard, heavily relied on by the district court. According to Industry, this affidavit misinterprets what the regulations allow and complains more about past than threatened harm. Whatever the inadequacies in Mr. Burchard's affidavit, however, other NWF affidavits satisfactorily plead injury. See, e.g., Ford Aff. (expressing concern over granting [of] any variances to allow leaving highwalls on non-steep slopes on land near her home because [s]uch a variance would adversely impact my enjoyment of the natural vistas of these hills). Accordingly, we find NWF has standing to challenge the Secretary's regulation. 138
139 NWF here challenges a regulation that it alleges falls short of requiring mining operations to backfill highwalls created by mining when those highwalls are part of a pit that will be filled with water and thus become a last-cut lake. See Findings on Standing, at 28. The regulations, as the district court observed, merely contain[ ] a general proviso that vertical highwalls be placed sufficiently below the waterline 'to provide adequate safety and access for the proposed water users.'  Id. (quoting 30 C.F.R. Sec. 816.49(a)(9)). 20 140 The district court concluded that NWF had standing, observing that NWF had alleged injuries including dangers to recreational users of lakes and fishermen. Id. at 28-29 (citing Smith Aff.; Nelson Aff.). Industry's argument on appeal is that (1) the new regulations provide adequate safety for prospective swimmers, (2) the district court exaggerated the concerns of affiant Nelson, and (3) finding injury sufficient to support standing would require a chain of events altogether too speculative. See Brief for Industry at 37-39. We disagree. Again we emphasize that the protections built into the new regulations bear on the merits of the Secretary's interpretation, not on standing. Moreover, although affiant Nelson did not precisely mention the elimination of fishing species, as the district court implied he did, he does state: I also favor backfilling and regrading of those highwalls because it provides certain species of fish with a shallow habitat necessary for spawning or as habitat. Id. Industry's attempt to denigrate Mr. Nelson's claim of injury to his interest in observing fishing species is unpersuasive. Finally, we reject Industry's by-now familiar refrain that NWF's injury is unduly speculative with our by-now familiar observation that no amount of linguistic disaggregation dissipates the plausibility of the affiants' claim, here, that inadequate reparation of mining damage in the form of highwalls can harm local fish. Accordingly, we find NWF to have standing. 141
142 NWF here challenges a regulation for failing to require that when grazing is the designated post-mining use of land, the mine operator must use the land for grazing for two years before his bond on that land is released. 21 143 The district court concluded that NWF had standing to challenge this regulation, citing affidavits of two sportsmen who alleged that their ability to hunt wildlife had been impaired by the failure to restore wildlife habitats to pre-mining conditions. In response, Industry argues that hunting is not grazing, and thus that the two hunters have no standing to challenge a regulation for want of better encouragement of grazing. 144 We disagree. Industry's argument is premised on the assumption that enhanced grazing itself is NWF's goal. That assumption is incorrect. NWF's argument is rather that grazing is the best measure of successful revegetation, and thus that NWF members harmed by incomplete reclamation of grazing and pasturelands have standing to challenge the Secretary's regulation as inadequate. Sportsmen who claim that the resulting failure to restore wildlife habitats has impaired their ability to hunt are surely among those harmed by incomplete regulation. Accordingly, we conclude that the district court correctly held that NWF has standing.