ELR Citation: ELR 20208
No(s). 03-370 (E.D. La. Oct 4, 2006)

A district court held that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers failed to take a "hard look" at the environmental impacts and consequences of dredging and disposing of contaminated sediment from the Industrial Canal, a five-mile link just east of New Orleans in the navigational system that connects the Gulf Intracoastal Waterway and the Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet with the Mississippi River and Lake Pontchartrain. In light of Hurricane Katrina, the underlying purpose of the National Environmental Policy Act will not be served if the Corps moves forward with the project according to a plan devised almost a decade ago. Further, extra-record materials submitted by citizen groups challenging the project shed light on this fact and, thus, are proper for inclusion in the administrative record. Notably, the Corps' environmental impact statement failed to consider the reasonable dredging and disposal alternatives that the Corps recently adopted for maintenance dredging of the same waters. Thus, without further study and planning, the project cannot be considered "environmentally conscious."