ELR Citation: 41 ELR 20336
No(s). 10-1473 (10th Cir. Nov 8, 2011)

The Tenth Circuit affirmed a lower court decision dismissing a lawsuit challenging the Forest Service's approval of a ski area improvement project near Aspen, Colorado. A conservation group alleged that the Forest Service violated NEPA by approving the project without examining certain cumulative effects—namely, effects on water resources, endangered fish, forest habitats, and other resources—and without assessing the impacts of the construction of a new village as a cumulative action. But except for the issue of water depletion, the group failed to exhaust its claims at the administrative level. Claims cannot be "only vaguely and cryptically referred to, if at all, during the administrative appeal." Here, the group merely included its claims in long lists without expounding on the significance of the proposed impacts, or it described them vaguely as "other impacts." And although it did exhaust the water depletion issue, it failed to properly preserve it before the lower court. In fact, the group gave minimal, if any, attention in the lower court to the claims they raised on appeal.