ELR Citation: ELR 20075
No(s). 85-6125 (2d Cir. Jul 30, 1985)

The court holds that the Corps of Engineers' decision not to require local government to replace or relocate a bridge to be removed as part of a channel improvement project violated neither the Act authorizing the project nor the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). First, the court holds that although the 1958 Act authorizing the project contemplated local replacement of the bridge, the Act allows the Corps to modify the project as advisable. The modification at issue is not so foreign to the original purpose of the project to be arbitrary and capricious. The court then holds that the Corps' environmental impact statement examined all necessary environmental consequences of the project including the removal and non-replacement of the bridge. The court rules that NEPA does not mandate that an agency assign dollar value to impacts, but only that it include information reasonably necessary under the circumstances for the evaluation of the project. The court holds that while plaintiffs will suffer personal inconvenience, they have not proved that the Corps failed to consider them when it concluded that the overall economic "disability" of the project would be insignificant.

A dissent would read the 1958 Act as making construction of a replacement bridge a condition precedent to the channel improvement project.

Counsel for Plaintiffs-Appellants
Robert C. Napier
100 Executive Office Bldg., Rochester NY 14614
(716) 232-4474

Counsel for Defendants-Appellants
Albert M. Ferlo Jr.
Land and Natural Resources Division
Department of Justice, Washington DE 20530
(202) 633-2774

Before KEARSE and CARDAMONE, Circuit Judges, and WYATT, District Judge^*.