## Facts

- Federal wildlife officials listed the spikedace and loach minnow as threatened species under the Endangered Species Act (ESA) and designated approximately 74 miles of river as critical habitat in Catron County, New Mexico.
- The County alleged the designation would restrict water diversion and impoundment activities used for flood control, increasing flood risks to county property and infrastructure and affecting private land and the local economy.
- In promulgating the critical habitat designation, the agency did not prepare an environmental assessment (EA) or environmental impact statement (EIS), taking the position that ESA § 4 procedures displaced or exempted compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).
- The County sued under the Administrative Procedure Act (APA), ESA, and NEPA seeking to set aside the designation and to obtain injunctive relief based on the agency’s failure to conduct NEPA analysis and disclosure.
- The district court granted partial summary judgment for the County, ruled NEPA applied, and issued injunctive relief (stayed pending appeal).

## Issues

1. Whether the County had Article III and APA standing (and whether the challenged conduct was reviewable final agency action) to contest the failure to comply with NEPA in a critical habitat designation.
2. Whether NEPA applies to critical habitat designations under ESA § 4, or whether ESA procedures implicitly exempt or displace NEPA.

## Decision

- The court affirmed the district court’s partial summary judgment and injunctive relief.
- The County had standing: it alleged concrete, particularized threatened injury to proprietary and environmental interests, fairly traceable to the lack of NEPA procedures, with a substantial likelihood of redress through NEPA compliance.
- The agency’s action was reviewable under the APA as final agency action.
- NEPA applies to ESA critical habitat designations; ESA § 4 does not impliedly repeal, displace, or exempt NEPA, and the statutes operate consistently.

## Legal Principles

- A plaintiff may establish NEPA standing by showing concrete threatened injury to environmental or proprietary interests tied to an agency’s failure to undertake NEPA procedures, plus traceability and likely redressability.
- Promulgation of a critical habitat designation, and the associated failure to perform required NEPA analysis, can constitute final agency action reviewable under the APA.
- NEPA’s procedural requirements apply to agency actions unless Congress clearly creates an exemption; general ESA § 4 procedures do not, by implication alone, exempt critical habitat designations from NEPA review.
- An agency’s belief that an action is environmentally beneficial does not excuse compliance with NEPA’s assessment and disclosure requirements.

## Conclusion

The Tenth Circuit held that a county had standing to challenge the failure to perform NEPA review for an ESA critical habitat designation and that NEPA applies to such designations because ESA procedures do not impliedly displace NEPA.


Catron Cnty. Bd. of Comm’rs v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., 75 F.3d 1429 (10th Cir. 1996)