Court Opinion

ID: 9698875
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 20:02:24.240572+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T12:30:09.028195
License: Public Domain

BABLITCH, J.
(Dissenting.) With all respect for the thoughtful and candid opinion of the majority, I cannot concur in the result it reaches. In my view the effect of the opinion is to sanction a rather transparent subterfuge designed to evade the dictates of WEPA, as well as of a circuit court order compelling compliance with those dictates.
*286The record is replete with indications that the original proposal extending the Hales Corners interceptor an additional 2,000 feet in order to service the relatively undeveloped New Berlin area has never been abandoned by the District and is presently extant.1 The maj ority concedes that the extension is “likely,” that it “may be reasonably forecast” at this time, and that is “sufficiently definite” so that its impact on the environment could presently be determined. This being so, it is difficult to understand the majority’s conclusion that the decision to complete the project as originally proposed has been “left to the future.” The record shows that the decision has been made. It is merely the implementation of that decision, and compliance with WEPA, which has been left to the future.
The purpose of WEPA is to ensure that state agency decisions about actions which have a significant impact on the environment will be subject to public scrutiny and debate “to the fullest extent possible.” Sec. 1.11, Stats. That purpose is not served by allowing an agency to isolate the environmentally insignificant portion of an intended project — here, seven-ninths of the whole — and pretend that the environmentally significant balance of the project does not exist. Allowing it to do so in this case has the effect of loading the scales of future debate over the New Berlin hookup with the fait accompli of a *287Hales Corners system ready, able, and in fact designed to accommodate it. Therefore, although the extension decision is obviously “reversible” until it is actually implemented, the chances that it will be reversed are less once the first seven-ninths of the original project has been completed. This prejudices the full and impartial consideration of alternatives to the last two-ninths of the original proposal and makes the secondary effects of the hookup more likely. For these reasons alone, I would hold that the “proposal” presently before the agency is the project described in the original application, as to which an EIS and a public hearing are required by the act.
In addition, I disagree with the implicit holding of the majority that the question whether the DNR, the EPA and the District conspired to avoid WEPA and NEPA by segmenting the original project is immaterial to our review so long as the truncated segment can “stand on its own two feet.” In WED III, the supreme court observed that “[w]hen a negative EIS determination is challenged, the question is whether the agency . . . has complied with the letter and spirit of WEPA.” 79 Wis.2d 409, 419, 256 N.W.2d 149, 155 (1977). It seems to me that a deliberate scheme to circumvent the act by redefining a proposal to include less than is actually and presently intended violates both the letter and spirit of the act, and ought not to be condoned by reviewing courts. See Thompson v. Fugate, 347 F. Supp. 120 (1972), Scientists’ Institute for Public Information v. AEC, 481 F.2d 1079 (1973).

 It is interesting to note that the application for the shortened version of the project was first filed in October, 1977, during the pendency of the Decade’s circuit court action challenging the original application. It is apparent that the application was filed in anticipation of the trial court’s remand of the original application to the DNR for compliance with WEPA, since a holding in favor of the DNR would have rendered the shortened application moot. In light of this background, as well as other facts cited in the majority opinion which show that the New Berlin hookup is still intended, I cannot agree with the majority’s statement that both the District and the DNR have treated the shortened application as having superceded the original application.