Opinion ID: 164789
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Balancing of Harm to Defendants

Text: 31 The FHWA has already invested a substantial amount of money in this construction project. Over $52 million was invested between August 1, 2002, and February 12, 2003. According to a declaration by the NMSHTD's Design Compliance Engineer for the Hondo Valley Project, a suspension of construction would cost $144,000 per day, or $4,320,000 per month. A permanent termination of the project would cost $11,537,000, including demobilization and clean-up costs. Given these figures, it is clear that the FHWA will suffer significant financial harm if the injunction is granted. 32 While these costs cannot be ignored, financial concerns alone generally do not outweigh environmental harm. See Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc., 401 U.S. at 412-13, 91 S.Ct. 814 (Congress clearly did not intend that cost and disruption of the community were to be ignored by the Secretary. But the very existence of the statutes [i.e., Section 4(f)] indicates that protection of parkland was to be given paramount importance.). We have previously accorded less weight to financial harms relative to environmental harms when the financial harms are self-inflicted. See Davis, 302 F.3d at 1116 (noting that it appears that many of these costs [of delay] may be self-inflicted .... [because] the state entities involved in this case have `jumped the gun' on the environmental issues by entering into contractual obligations that anticipated a pro forma result.). 33 Whether the financial harm the FHWA will suffer if the injunction is granted outweighs the harm the Plaintiffs will suffer if it is not seems to turn on the merits of the case. If the FHWA did not comply with Section 4(f), but rather jumped the gun and began construction before completing the necessary environmental reviews, then the environmental harm faced by the plaintiffs may outweigh the FHWA's financial harm. If the FHWA complied with all relevant environmental laws and correctly determined that the project will not use a Section 4(f)-protected property, then the balancing of harms weighs in favor of the defendants. The Plaintiffs have not, therefore, established that the balancing of the harms tips strongly in their favor.