(United States Ninth Circuit) - In a suit brought against suit federal and local transit agencies and officials under the National Environmental Policy Act,alleging that defendants' environmental impact analysis for a novel underground light rail line project in downtown Los Angeles was inadequate, the district court's grant of summary judgment to defendants is affirmed where: 1) defendants analyzed and adopted additional mitigation measures for construction-related noises and vibration in Japanese Village after the release of the Final Environmental Impact Statement, or the failure to see the need for these mitigation measures at the time the impact statement was released in January 2012 did not violate NEPA; 2) regardless of whether temporary relocation was considered a mitigation degree or a source of harm,defendants did not violate NEPA as long as they took a hard look at each alternative and discussed the extent to which adverse effects could be avoided; and 3) defendants were not arbitrary or capricious in finding that Closed-Face Tunnel Boring Machine construction was not a feasible alternative as a tunneling method for the Lower Flower portion of the Project.
Source: findlaw.com