ELR Citation: 48 ELR 20131
No(s). CV-15-14-GF-BMM (D. Mont. Jul 20, 2018)

A district court denied in part environmental groups' motion for summary judgment challenging BLM's and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers' approval of a project to replace a wooden diversion weir with a concrete dam along the Yellowstone River. The groups argued that the agencies' EIS violated NEPA because it failed to present the public with a clear, meaningful, and candid comparison between the environmental consequences of the bypass channel and the multiple pumps alternative being studied. The court disagreed, concluding that the EIS proved adequate for the groups and the public to identify and understand the differences among the alternatives being studied. The groups further argued that the Corps' CWA analysis of the project's aquatic ecosystem impacts applied the wrong standard by not comparing practicable alternatives. But the court again disagreed, concluding that the Corps correctly completed its analysis even though the multiple pumps alternative had been designed only to a conceptual level at the time of the EIS. The groups also argued that the court should order the agencies to bring operations of two dams into compliance with the ESA, but the court dismissed those claims without prejudice. The court therefore denied in part and dismissed in part the groups' motion for summary judgment.