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Appellate Court Upholds Permit for Landfill Expansion in Solano County

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After years of environmental review and litigation, the First District Court of Appeal upheld permits authorizing the expansion of a landfill in Solano County. Waste Connections, Inc., has sought for more than a decade to expand the Potrero Hills Landfill, which is in an upland “secondary management area” of Suisun Marsh. In SPRAWLDEF v. San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission, ___Cal.App.___, an environmental group challenged the San Francisco Bay Conservation and Development Commission’s approval of the permits, arguing that the commission should have approved a smaller expansion that would not affect a marsh watercourse. The court disagreed. Applying CEQA case law to the county ordinance at issue, the court held that substantial evidence in the record supported the commission’s determination that smaller alternatives were not economically reasonable.

Solano County Ordinance, section 31-300, allows modification of a marsh watercourse only if no “reasonable alternative” exists. The commission determined that a smaller expansion alternative, designed to avoid encroaching on the intermittent watercourse, would not be economically realistic. The trial court agreed with the petitioner, Sustainability, Parks, Recycling and Wildlife Legal Defense Fund (SPRAWLDEF), that no substantial evidence supported the commission’s determination. The Court of Appeal reversed.

In evaluating whether the commission had substantial evidence for its decision, the court applied CEQA principles. The court noted that, under CEQA, governments must choose “feasible” alternatives and “feasible” mitigation measures to lessen the significant environmental impacts of projects. Employing CEQA’s definition of “feasible” and CEQA case law concerning economic infeasibility, the court concluded that CEQA’s definition of economic “feasibility” embraces the concept of reasonableness. From there, the court engaged in an extensive discussion of CEQA case law.

The court distinguished this case from CEQA cases where a determination of economic infeasibility was legally inadequate. In those cases, meaningful comparison of the proposal and the alternatives was not possible because there was no evidence regarding the cost of the alternatives. Here, the court focused on the commission’s ability to compare the costs of the proposed expansion with that of the alternatives. Waste Connections, Inc. the landfill operator, explained its profit margins and advised the commission that the economic consequences of the alternatives would be so great that the project would not be “financially viable.” It submitted data for both the proposed expansion and the alternatives, comparing the per unit cost, capacity, and the life of the landfill for each. Thus, according to the court, the commission had an “adequate record before it to fairly determine the smaller alternatives were not economically reasonable.”

The court stated that there was “no merit” to SPRAWLDEF’s assertion that the economic information regarding the costs of the proposal and alternatives should be discounted or ignored because it was provided by the real party in interest, Waste Connections, and that it was within the province of the commission to find the information credible and accept it as accurate and relevant. The court determined that this data provided the commission with “some context” to assess the economic feasibility of the alternatives and held that there was substantial evidence to support the commission’s determination that the smaller alternatives were not economically feasible.

Energy Information Administration (EIA) Reduces Its Estimates of Recoverable Oil in the Monterey Shale to 600 Million Barrels, down 96% from 2012 Estimates

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At the May 21, 2014 Oil & Gas Strategies Summit in New York, EIA Administrator Adam Sieminski shocked many with his announcement that the federal agency has drastically cut its estimates of technically recoverable oil in the Monterey Shale from 13.7 billion barrels to 600 million barrels. According to Sieminski’s reported comments, the revision was prompted, in part, by new evidence the EIA and U.S. Geological Survey collected on output from wells where new techniques have been tested.

In 2011, the EIA published a report by INTEK Inc. that estimated there were 15.4 billion barrels of technically recoverable shale oil, or “tight oil” in the Monterey Formation.   Sometime in 2012, the EIA reduced this estimate to 13.7 billion barrels.  Now, the agency plans to release a report in the coming months that will explain why it has decided to severely reduce the estimate to 600 million barrels.

The Post Carbon Institute’s December 2013 report on the Monterey Shale presaged this news.   The PCI report—“Drilling California: A Reality Check on the Monterey Shale”—provided several reasons why the EIA’s 2011 estimates were likely to be “highly overstated.”  For example, the report asserts that:

  • “Existing fields within the Monterey are areally restricted and are primarily controlled by structural and stratigraphic trapping mechanisms, thus the assumption of broad regions of prospectivity is highly questionable.”
  • “An analysis of every well producing from Monterey shale reservoirs reveals that average initial productivity is less than half of the typical horizontal and vertical shale wells assumed in the EIA/INTEK report, and less than a quarter of the ‘typical Elk Hills vertical shale well’.”
  • “Fracking and acidization have doubtless been tried extensively on Monterey shale wells, yet the data do not show any significant increase in initial well productivity or likely cumulative oil recovery for recent wells.”

(J. David Hughes, PCI Fellow, Drilling California: A Reality Check on the Monterey Shale, at p. 46.)

EPA Sets Emission Reduction Goals for Power Plants

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After hundreds of stakeholder meetings during the past year, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has issued emissions guidelines for states to follow as they develop plans to address greenhouse gas emissions from existing power plants. On June 2, 2014, EPA released a proposed rule that would require fossil fuel-fired electric generating units to reduce their 2005-level carbon dioxide emissions 30% by 2030. The rule falls under Section 111(d) of the Clean Air Act.

Each state would have its own rate-based CO2 emissions standard. Interim checkpoints for the ultimate emissions reduction goal would begin in 2020. Aside from improved fossil fuel efficiency, the rule encourages emissions reductions in the energy sector by taking advantage of renewable energy sources and reducing electricity demand across the grid.

The comment period will run for 120 days. States must submit implementation plans by June 30, 2016.

The proposed rule is available here.

Fifth District Court of Appeal Rejects Claims that Active Adult Housing Project Conflicts with Fresno County’s General Plan, but Concludes EIR for the Project Failed to Provide Sufficient Detail Regarding Air Quality Impacts on Human Health

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On May 27, 2014, the Fifth District Court of Appeal issued its decision in Sierra Club et al. v. County of Fresno et al. (Case No. F066798). The case involves the County of Fresno’s approval of the Friant Ranch project, a master-planned retirement community for “active adults” (age 55 and older) on an approximately 942-acre site in north central Fresno County.

In the trial court, petitioners Sierra Club, Revive the San Joaquin, and League of Women Voters of Fresno (collectively, the Sierra Club), argued that: (1) the Friant Ranch project was inconsistent with the county’s general plan policies regarding agricultural land use and traffic levels of service; (2) the EIR’s analysis of the project’s air quality impacts was inadequate; and (3) the EIR’s analysis of water quality impacts associated with the project’s wastewater treatment plant was inadequate. The trial court denied the Sierra Club’s petition for writ of mandate. The Sierra Club appealed.

On appeal, the Sierra Club argued that the general plan policy to “maintain agriculturally designated areas for agricultural use” prohibits the county from redesignating land designated as agriculture to other uses. Because the Friant Ranch project included a general plan amendment redesignating the project site from agriculture to residential and commercial designations, the Sierra Club argued the county’s approval of the project violated the agricultural policy. Respondent County of Fresno, and Real Party in Interest, Friant Ranch, LP, represented by RMM attorneys Jim Moose, Tiffany Wright, and Laura Harris, contended that the general plan does not require the county to maintain land currently designated agriculture in that designation in perpetuity. The court agreed that the general plan allows the county to amend land use designations. And, because the project site is no longer designated agriculture, the project is not inconsistent with the requirement to maintain agriculturally designated areas in agricultural use. The court also held that the Sierra Club had failed to exhaust its arguments concerning the county’s transportation policies.

The Sierra Club also argued that the EIR lacked sufficient detail about the amount and location of wastewater discharge from the project’s proposed wastewater treatment plant. Although the Sierra Club did not make this argument in the trial court (and therefore would ordinarily be deemed to have forfeited the argument), the Court of Appeal exercised its discretion to consider the argument because matters involving the disposal of wastewater affect the public interest and the argument raised a question of law. Although not directly stated, the Court of Appeal appeared to believe that CEQA requires detailed information regarding the water balance to be included in the project’s CEQA documents. The court explained that the fact that the county’s experts opined that sufficient storage was available was irrelevant because, according to the court, the existence of substantial evidence in the record does not mean that sufficient information was disclosed in the EIR. The court therefore undertook an exhaustive review of various statements in the EIR and its supporting appendices about the amount of wastewater anticipated to be generated by the project and the size of the storage pond. Based on this review, the court determined that sufficient information was included in the CEQA documents regarding the amount and location of wastewater disposal.

The Sierra Club further claimed that the EIR’s discussion of air quality impacts was inadequate because the EIR: (1) did not explain what it meant to exceed the thresholds of significance by tens of tons per year; and (2) provided no meaningful analysis of the adverse health effects that would be associated with the project’s estimated emissions, which were above the thresholds. Although the EIR disclosed the types of health impacts associated with unsafe levels of the pollutants, quantified the project’s emissions, and concluded that the project would exceed the thresholds of significance set by the local air district, which are based on standards necessary for public health, the court held that this was not enough.

The court concluded that although the EIR had identified the adverse health impacts that could result from the project’s effect on air quality, it did not sufficiently analyze this effect. For example, the information disclosed in the EIR did not enable the reader to determine whether the 100-plus tons per year of coarse particulate matter, reactive organic gases, and mono-nitrogen oxides would require people with respiratory difficulties to wear filtering devices when they go outdoors in the project area or nonattainment basin. Nor did the information provided in the EIR make it possible to know how many additional days the San Joaquin Valley Air Basin would be in nonattainment due to the project. The court noted that answers to these examples are not necessarily required in a revised EIR, but that the EIR must contain some analysis of the correlation between the project’s emissions and human health.

The court also concluded that the county’s mitigation measures adopted for the project’s significant and unavoidable operational air quality impacts violated CEQA because, in the court’s opinion, the mitigation measures were too vague and unenforceable. The court reasoned that the mitigation measures needed to be more specific about who would implement the measures, and when. As an example, the court noted that the mitigation measure that trees “shall be carefully selected and located” to protect buildings from energy consuming environmental conditions uses the passive voice to hide the identity of the actor—that is, the person or entity selecting and locating the trees.

The court also concluded that the mitigation measures were impermissibly deferred. Although the Sierra Club had not raised this argument in the trial court, the court decided to consider the issue because it raised an important issue of policy. The mitigation measures stated that the county and the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District may substitute different air pollution control measures that are “equally effective or superior” to those set forth in the EIR, as better technology becomes available. The court found that this possibility of substitution rendered the mitigation measures deferred because the contents of the substituted provisions are unknown at present. Therefore, the court looked to whether the mitigation measures contained adequate performance standards to determine what types of measures would be “equally effective or superior” and concluded that many did not. For example, one mitigation measure required nonresidential projects to have bike lockers, which the court held failed to specify any performance standard to determine how to substitute the measure for an equally or more effective measure.

Furthermore, the court held that the statement in the EIR that the mitigation measures would “substantially” reduce air quality impacts was not supported by a discussion in the EIR and therefore violated CEQA.

Lastly, the court rejected Sierra Club’s claim that the county had not responded in good faith to comments suggesting that the county consider off-site emission reduction programs, such as the air district’s “Voluntary Emission Reduction Agreement” program. The court found that the county’s response to such comments, which explained that VERAs are voluntary and would be considered in connection with future project approvals was reasoned and met an objective good faith standard.

Ninth Circuit Upholds EIS for Southern California Delivery of Colorado River Water

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The Imperial County Air Pollution Control District and the County of Imperial challenged the United States Department of the Interior’s Environmental Impact Statement analyzing the effects of water transfer agreements on the Salton Sea and in southern California. The court held that the Department did not violate NEPA or the Clean Air Act. The case is People of the State of California ex rel. Imperial County Air Pollution Control District v. U.S. Department of the Interior (May 19, 2014) 14 C.D.O.S. 5454.

History

The Salton Sea’s access to Colorado River water—the Sea’s only water supply— is in jeopardy. In 1922, states in the Colorado River basin agreed to divide the river’s water among the upper- and lower-basin states. In 1931, southern California irrigation and water districts agreed to a framework for distributing the state’s share of the river water, which assumed a perpetual surplus of the water. In 1963, the Supreme Court held in Arizona v. California that California’s Colorado River allotment was limited to 4.4 million acre-feet per year, and that the state could only exceed this limit if other lower-basin states did not use their allotments or there was a surplus of water. In 1999, several water districts negotiated Quantification Settlement Agreements to reduce Colorado River water usage.

In 2001, the Secretary of the Interior announced that she would prepare an Implementation Agreement EIS to consider the consequences of delivering a portion of Imperial Irrigation water at different diversion points on the Colorado River for use outside of the Imperial Valley. The Final EIS (“FEIS”) discussed on-river environmental impacts of altering Colorado River delivery diversion points, indirect effects of changing the amount of water received by the California districts, and potential mitigation measures to reduce off-river ecological consequences. In 2003, the Secretary evaluated minor modifications to the proposed master implementation agreement, the Colorado River Water Delivery Agreement. She determined a supplemental EIS was unnecessary and issued a final record of decision. Plaintiffs sued and the district court granted summary judgment to the defendants, holding that plaintiffs lacked standing and, alternatively, rejecting their NEPA claims on the merits.

Ninth Circuit Decision

The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeal held that plaintiffs had established Article III standing, and thus moved on to plaintiffs’ substantive arguments. In assessing plaintiffs’ NEPA claims, the court first considered whether the Secretary had taken a “hard look” at the environmental consequences of the proposed action and reasonably evaluated the relevant facts.

Plaintiffs argued that the Implementation EIS either did not clarify whether it incorporated the state Transfer Environmental Impact Report or the Federal Transfer EIS, or improperly cited to a non-NEPA document—the Transfer EIR. The court determined that plaintiffs’ assertion that the FEIS cited to the separate CEQA and NEPA reviews as if they were a single document was “fly-specking,” and the court stated it would not let a minor misstatement prejudice its review. The court also found harmless a reference to a document as “tiered to and incorporated” when the analysis should have only said “incorporated.” The court further held that the Secretary did not act arbitrarily by separately preparing a Transfer EIS and an Implementation Agreement EIS, since the project could be properly segmented in that manner under the independent utility test.

The court held that the Secretary did not abuse her discretion in concluding that a supplemental EIS was unnecessary. The changes contained in the FEIS: (1) were qualitatively considered through a no-mitigation alternative; (2) were a secondary aspect of the EIS; (3) reduced overall an adverse environmental impact; and (4) did not alter the project’s cost-benefit analysis. Additionally, the FEIS and the record of decision sufficiently considered potential mitigation measures.

The court also held that the decision to discuss only one alternative—no action—was not arbitrary and capricious. NEPA does not require discussion of a minimum number of alternatives; the number depends on the stated goal of the project. The FEIS compared the project to only one alternative because the project was a negotiated agreement. Discussing a hypothetical alternative that no one had agreed to or would likely agree to, the court reasoned, would have been unhelpful.

The court also found the EIS sufficiently discussed air quality, reclamation, and growth-inducing impacts.

Finally, the court addressed plaintiffs’ Clean Air Act claims. The court noted that neither federal nor state conformity rules (which prohibit the authorization of activities that do not conform with an approved implementation plan) identify the form an agency must use when deciding whether a project necessitates a full-scale conformity determination. Here, the Secretary announced her decision that a conformity determination was unnecessary in the FEIS. The court stated that an agency need not prepare a stand-alone document explaining that decision. Furthermore, the Secretary did not abuse her discretion by concluding that Interior Department actions would not directly cause PM10 emissions. The project only committed the Secretary to changing the delivery point of Colorado River Water; any actions would occur at dams far from those diversion points.

The court affirmed the judgment of the district court.

First District Court of Appeal Upholds Use of Class 3 Categorical Exemption for Utility Project in San Francisco

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The First District Court of Appeal ordered publication of its opinion upholding San Francisco’s determination that a city-wide utility project was exempt from CEQA under the “Class 3” categorical exemption. The case, San Francisco Beautiful v. City and County of San Francisco (April 20, 2014) ___ Cal.App. ___, was published May 30, 2014.

The challenged project was AT&T’s proposal to install 726 metal utility boxes housing telecommunications equipment on San Francisco sidewalks in order to expand its fiber-optic network. San Francisco approved the project without requiring an EIR, based on its conclusion that the project fell within the “Class 3” categorical exemption described in CEQA Guidelines section 15303. Class 3 establishes exemptions for “[1] construction and location of limited numbers of new, small facilities or structures,” and “[2] installation of small new equipment and facilities in small structures.” (CEQA Guidelines, § 15303.) Among the examples of this exemption are “[w]ater main, sewage, electrical, gas, and other utility extensions, including street improvements, of reasonable length to serve such construction.” (Guidelines, § 15303, subd. (d).)

The petitioners argued that the project was not exempt under clause 1 of the Class 3 exemption because the 726 new structures were not a “limited number,” and that it was not exempt under clause 2 because it involved the construction and location of new structures, rather than the “installation” of equipment in existing small structures. The Court of Appeal disagreed, finding that under clause 2, the terms of the exemption were not limited to the installation of equipment in existing small structures. Rather, it determined that the Class 3 exemption can apply even when new structures are installed or constructed. Based on this determination, the court held that the city’s project fit into the Class 3 exemption. Because it found the project exempt on this basis, the court found it unnecessary to address the “limited number” argument.

The petitioners also claimed that, even if the Class 3 exemption applied, the city was still required to prepare an EIR because exceptions to the exemption applied. Specifically, they argued that the project would have a significant environmental effect due to unusual circumstances and would have cumulative impacts. (See CEQA Guidelines, § 15300.2, subd. (b), (c).) Regarding the unusual circumstances exception, the court determined that the petitioners identified no unusual circumstances relating to placement of the new utility structures in an urbanized area that already housed similar structures. The court also determined that, even if there were unusual circumstances, the petitioners failed to demonstrate that the project would have a significant environmental effect.  Notably, the court rejected the petitioners’ argument that residents’ views on the project’s aesthetic effects constituted evidence of a significant impact sufficient to trigger the need for an EIR.

The court acknowledged that the appropriate standard of review for the “unusual circumstances” exception is an issue currently pending before the Supreme Court (Berkeley Hillside Preservation v. City of Berkeley (S201116, rev. granted May 23, 2012). The court was careful to explain that its decision would be the same under either standard of review (“substantial evidence” or “fair argument”) and, therefore, it was not necessary for the court to determine that issue or any other issues that are before the Supreme Court in Berkeley Hillside.

The court also rejected the applicability of the cumulative impacts exception, explaining that the city did not have to consider the cumulative impact of all similar equipment to be installed throughout the city because the CEQA Guidelines instead limit the cumulative impact exception to successive projects of the same type in the same place. For the purposes of the utility boxes, the court found the “same place” meant the individual locations where the boxes would be placed.

Lastly, the court determined that the city had not improperly relied on mitigation measures in concluding the project was categorically exempt from CEQA. Although the city was required to review the utility cabinets to evaluate their potential to impede travel, inconvenience property owners, or otherwise disturb use of the right-of-way, that review is required by a Public Works Order, which is generally applicable to excavation permits for surface-mounted facilities. According to the court, this was not considered mitigation because an agency may rely on generally applicable regulations to conclude an environmental impact will not be significant and therefore does not require mitigation.

 

Ninth Circuit Determines That a Trial Court Erred When Excluding Expert Opinion as Unreliable in Water Contamination Case

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The primary issue in City of Pomona v. SQM North America Corporation (2014) __F.3d__, involves a dispute over the reliability of expert evidence presented to a trial court and that trial court’s decision to exclude the expert’s opinion as unreliable. The litigation began with petitioner City of Pomona’s efforts to remediate its water supply of perchlorate contamination in order to comply with California drinking water standards.

The City hired the environmental consulting firm Wildermuth Environmental, Inc. to investigate perchlorate contamination. The firm’s expert, Dr. Sturchio, used a testing methodology known as “stable isotope analysis” to identify the potential sources of perchlorate contamination. Based on this testing, Dr. Sturchio concluded that the majority of perchlorate contamination in Pomona’s groundwater could be traced to the Atacama Desert in Chile.

Using Dr. Sturchio’s findings, the City of Pomona argued that the perchlorate contamination in its groundwater had the same distinctive isotopic properties as perchlorate imported from Chile by SQM North America Corporation (“SQMNA”) between 1927 and the 1950’s. The city initiated litigation against SQMNA to recover costs of investigating and remediating perchlorate contamination in the city’s groundwater supply.

During pre-trial proceedings, SQMNA filed a motion to exclude Dr. Sturchio’s report, arguing the expert testimony was unreliable and therefore inadmissible under the Federal Rules of Evidence, rule 702. Rule 702 admits expert opinion into evidence where: 1) the witness is sufficiently qualified as an expert; 2) the expert’s knowledge will help the trier of fact to understand evidence or a fact in issue; 3) the expert’s testimony is based upon sufficient facts or data; 4) the expert’s testimony is based on reliable principles and methods; and 5) the principles or methods have been reliably applied by the expert to the facts of the case.  Under the long established “Daubert rule,” a court’s inquiry into the admissibility of expert opinion under rule 702 is flexible. In evaluating the admissibility of expert testimony, the court is “a gatekeeper, not a fact finder.” In other words, the role of the court is not to decide whether the expert is right or wrong as a matter of law, but whether the testimony is reliable and will be helpful to the finder of fact.

In this case, the district court concluded that Dr. Sturchio’s procedures were not sufficiently reliable because they are not generally accepted in the scientific community. The court pointed to three factors in support of this conclusion. First, the quality assurance/quality control (“QA/QC”) parameters for stable isotope analysis were still being refined. Second, the EPA had not yet certified stable isotope analysis for organic or inorganic compounds. And third, the methodology employed by the expert was not subject to retesting. But the Ninth Circuit disagreed, finding the district court’s reasoning insufficient to justify exclusion of Dr. Sturchio’s testimony.

The appellate court explained that scientific methods are not necessarily unreliable simply where they are subject to “further testing and refinement.” In reaching this conclusion, the appellate court displayed a sophisticated understanding of the scientific method. The scientific method relies on observation and the collection of data. Theories are developed based on these observations and data sets. But new observations and data are continually gathered and may point to a need for refinement of previously accepted theories. In this fashion, scientific theories are credible not because they have been proven “correct,” but because they have not yet been proven false. And while this may seem like an unnecessary exercise in semantics, the distinction is important to a fundamental understanding of the scientific method. As the appellate court succinctly stated: “There are no certainties in science.” That an expert’s method is subject to further testing and refinement is insufficient to render that expert’s opinion unreliable and inadmissible.

The appellate court also rejected the notion that Dr. Sturchio’s methods were not reliable simply because they were not certified by the EPA. The standard for testing the reliability of an expert’s methods is whether some objective source shows the expert’s conclusions are based on a scientific method practiced by at least a minority of recognized experts in the field, not whether the methods have been certified by the EPA or another government agency. Dr. Sturchio employed a method for the stable isotope study of chlorine and oxygen in perchlorate present in groundwater. And this testing method was based on the 2011 publication Guidance Manual for Forensic Analysis of Perchlorate in Groundwater Using Chlorine and Oxygen Isotopic Analyses, which was reviewed by other laboratories and subject to inter-laboratory calibration.  Furthermore, other leading experts in the field have employed the same methodology. These factors indicate that the stable isotope analysis was reliable, despite a lack of EPA certification.

Next, the appellate court addressed whether the expert opinion met the requirement of rule 702 that the methodology be subject to retesting. The district court criticized Dr. Sturchio for not taking dual samples, thereby making it impossible for other laboratories to verify the conclusions using the same exact data-set. But the appellate court determined the trial court applied the standard admissibility incorrectly. Under Daubert, testability of expert opinion is described in the context of a hypothesis that is falsifiable. In this case, other laboratories have employed the same methods used to analyze Pomona’s groundwater. Moreover, there is a distinction between whether the methodology used by an expert is subject to retesting and whether that expert took field samples properly. SQMNA’s criticisms focused on Dr. Sturchio’s sampling procedures and his failure to take dual samples. While this criticism may go to the weight afforded to the expert opinion, criticizing the expert’s samples is insufficient to show the methodology employed to reach the ultimate scientific conclusion is unreliable and should be excluded from evidence.

Finally, the appellate court addressed an issue familiar to CEQA practitioners: the battle of the experts. At trial, an expert for SQMNA argued Dr. Sturchio’s reference database was too limited for him to reliably identify and comment on the potential sources of perchlorate contamination in the city’s water. Dr. Sturchio naturally disagreed and defended his methodology in reply. The trial court found the uncertainty raised by SQMNA’s expert a compelling reason to exclude Dr. Sturchio’s opinion, but the Ninth Circuit noted that Daubert does not require such certainty for admitting expert testimony. Experts often disagree, and it was an abuse of discretion for the trial court to side with SQMNA’s expert over the city’s expert.  Instead, it was the role of the trier of fact—here, the jury—to resolve the conflicting expert testimony. Dr. Sturchio’s expert opinion should have been admitted.

This case, while not a CEQA case, provides useful guidance for CEQA and NEPA practitioners, as the reliability of expert opinion can often be an issue in litigation challenging environmental review. It also serves as an important reminder that a battle between experts is insufficient to establish unreliability. The fact finder in CEQA cases is the lead agency approving the project. When approving a project, the lead agency ultimately exercises its judgment in deciding how much weight to assign expert opinion. So when reviewing work produced by experts, like environmental consultants, CEQA practitioners should note to what extent the record supports that expert’s credibility. A robust record can assist practitioners in defending their expert’s credibility from attacks by experts hired by opponents.

Ninth Circuit Issues Injunction for Oregon Logging Project

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League of Wilderness Defenders / Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. Connaughton (May 8, 2014) 14 C.D.O.S. 5102.

Plaintiffs League of Wilderness Defenders / Blue Mountain Biodiversity Project and the Hells Canyon Preservation Council sought to enjoin logging in the Snow Basin project area, which covers 29,000 acres of the Whitman-Wallowa National Forest in northeast Oregon, on the theory that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service had violated NEPA and the federal Endangered Species Act (ESA).  The district court denied the preliminary injunction, holding that plaintiffs were not likely to succeed on any of their claims and that the balance of harms did not tip sharply in their favor.  But, on May 8, 2014, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals reversed in part and remanded, holding that plaintiffs had satisfied the Winter v. Natural Resources Defense Council test for preliminary injunctions.

Likelihood of Success on the Merits

The first prong of the preliminary injunction test asks whether there is a likelihood of success on the merits.  The Ninth Circuit found that plaintiffs were likely to succeed on the merits of one of their claims. The project’s Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) had reviewed the logging project’s potential environmental impacts on elk and their habitat, assuming that the US Forest Service’s Travel Management Plan, which regulated off-road motorized travel and reduced the number of roads within the forest, would be in place.  The plan, however, was subsequently withdrawn.  The court found that plaintiffs would likely prevail on their claim that the Forest Service must prepare a supplemental EIS to analyze the project’s impact on elk independent of the plan.  An accurate analysis based on up-to-date information, the court said, was key to informed public participation and proper functioning of NEPA.

Plaintiffs did not successfully show that they would be likely to prevail on their second claim that 130 acres of the project area warranted a cumulative impacts analysis.  The Ninth Circuit found that the Forest Service’s actions in that section were speculative and the environmental effects inchoate.  Nor did plaintiffs show any likelihood of success on their claim that the EIR should have analyzed the cumulative effects of stream temperatures on fish in the project region.  The court noted that the project would not impact stream temperatures, therefore any thermal stress on the fish was part of the project’s environmental baseline.  The court also rejected plaintiffs’ argument that the EIS’s reliance on aged studies was arbitrary and capricious, since no reliable evidence showed that the results of those studies were incorrect or that the status of bull trout in the project area had changed over time. Finally, the court upheld the agencies’ determination that bull trout were likely extirpated from the project area, finding that the agencies had conducted a reasonable reading of ambiguous evidence.

Likelihood of Irreparable Harm

The second prong of the preliminary injunction tests looks to the likelihood of irreparable harm absent issuance of the injunction.  The court noted that environmental harms can seldom be remedied by money damages and are often permanent or irreparable.  The logging of mature trees in particular cannot be remedied easily, if at all, as neither the planting of new seedlings nor the payment of money damages can fully repair such harm.  The court noted that it had upheld or granted injunctions in cases involving only smaller trees and in areas that had previously been logged.  There was sufficient likelihood of irreparable harm here, therefore, to support a preliminary injunction.

Balance of Equities

Having determined there was a likelihood of success on the merits and a likelihood of irreparable harm, the court then looked to whether the balance of equities tipped in plaintiffs’ favor.  The court took into account both economic and environmental interests, but concluded that the balance tipped in favor of the environmental harms since those would be permanent, whereas the economic setbacks would only be temporary.  The economic harm of the preliminary injunction would be the value of moving jobs and tax dollars to a future year — a harm the court considered “marginal.”

Interest to the Public

The final prong in the test for a preliminary injunction is whether the injunction is in the public interest.  The Forest Service argued that the public interest would be harmed by a preliminary injunction because the risk of local forest fires and insect infestation would not be reduced unless the logging occured as planned.  The court, however, cited evidence that fire suppression was expected to continue and be highly successful if no action were taken, with the possibility of periodic insect outbreaks.  Without evidence of an imminent threat, the agency could not say that the inability to mitigate such risks for a temporary period outweighed the public’s interest in maintaining elk habitat and mature trees in the forest.  The public’s economic interest, the court added, would not be completely foregone but merely delayed while the injunction was in place.

The Ninth Circuit remanded the case to the district court to issue the preliminary injunction.  The court expressly declined to comment on the appropriate scope of that injunction.

Trial Court Rejects Challenge to EIR for Cadiz Valley Groundwater Recovery Project in San Bernardino County, Appeal Likely to Follow

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On May 1, 2014, the Orange County Superior Court ruled against petitioners in six related cases and upheld the EIR for the Cadiz Valley Water Conservation, Recovery, and Storage Project.  The court noted its concern over the designation of Santa Margarita Water District as the lead agency for the project under CEQA.  But it concluded that even if the County of San Bernardino would have been a more appropriate lead agency, these concerns did not provide sufficient grounds for the granting of any of the writs sought by petitioners Delaware Tetra and Center for Biological Diversity.

Cadiz, Inc., is a private corporation that owns approximately 34,000 acres in the Mojave Desert portion of eastern San Bernardino County.  A vast groundwater basin capable of holding an estimated 17-34 million acre feet (MAF) underlies the Cadiz property.  The groundwater recovery project would allow Cadiz to sell up to 2 MAF of water that would otherwise become saline and evaporate over the next 100 years.  The project involves pumping and delivering to water providers like the Santa Margarita Water District a total of 50,000 AF a year for 50 years. The participating water districts and water providers could also send their surplus surface water supplies to the Cadiz Valley Project to recharge the groundwater and store it until the water is needed in subsequent years.

Currently, six entities have signed purchase or option agreements with Cadiz: 1) Santa Margarita Water District, 2) Three Valleys Municipal Water District, 3) Suburban Water Systems, 4) Golden State Water Company, 5) Jurupa Community Services, and 6) California Water Service Company.  These entities will receive 80% of the project’s water supplies, while 20% is reserved for future use by water agencies in San Bernardino County.

The project drew CEQA challenges from both the private sector and environmental groups.  Petitioner Delaware Tetra Technologies owns a salt mining operation in the Cadiz and Fenner Valleys of San Bernardino County. The groundwater recovery project threatens the continued operation of the salt mine because it will reduce the flow of saline water that creates salt when it evaporates.

In other suits, petitioners Center for Biological Diversity (CBD) and other conservation groups asserted several CEQA claims, including concern over the potential environmental impacts on nearby springs in wilderness areas and the Mojave National Preserve.   They argue that the project would be growth-inducing because the Santa Margarita Water District will send the groundwater it purchases to support development in Orange County.  The Orange County Superior Court’s Ruling did not specify its rationale for rejecting petitioners’ CEQA arguments.  Instead, the court directed respondents Santa Margarita Water District and the County of San Bernardino to prepare proposed findings as to each petition reflecting that the court adopted the respondents’ arguments but noting that the court had some concerns regarding the lead agency designation.  Counsel for CBD has indicated that it will appeal the decision.

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