## Facts

- A private barge operator applied to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a permit under § 10 of the Rivers and Harbors Appropriation Act of 1899 to construct and operate a temporary barge-fleeting facility on the Illinois bank of the Mississippi River near Grafton.
- The facility would accommodate about 30 barges along roughly 1,500 feet (about five acres) within a seven-mile scenic reach known as Alton Lake/Alton Pool, near the Great River Road and river bluffs.
- The river reach already experienced heavy commercial traffic, with hundreds of barges passing through daily; a shipyard was located nearby.
- The permit was time-limited and set to expire when a downstream lock was replaced.
- The Corps prepared an environmental assessment (EA), considered public comments, issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), and decided an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) was unnecessary.
- A neighborhood/environmental organization, joined by the State of Illinois and others, challenged the permit, alleging inadequate NEPA review, particularly regarding aesthetic, recreational, aquatic-resource, and cumulative impacts.
- The district court set aside the permit as arbitrary and capricious, finding the Corps failed to document the “hard look” required by NEPA; the Corps and the applicant appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the Corps abused its discretion under NEPA by determining, based on an EA and FONSI, that the project would not significantly affect the human environment and therefore did not require an EIS.
2. Whether alleged aesthetic and recreational harms, potential impacts on mussel beds and fisheries, and cumulative effects were substantial enough to require an EIS.
3. Whether the Corps was required to conduct a broader alternatives analysis at the EA stage beyond the permit applicant’s review, absent identified feasible alternative sites.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court and upheld the Corps’ permit decision.
- The court held the Corps did not abuse its discretion in finding no significant environmental impact and therefore was not required to prepare an EIS.
- The court concluded the asserted non-aesthetic impacts were minor, speculative, or insufficiently supported in the record to trigger an EIS.
- The court held the Corps was not required to perform an extensive alternative-sites study where challengers failed to identify plausible overlooked alternatives.

## Legal Principles

- In the Seventh Circuit, an agency decision not to prepare an EIS after issuing an EA/FONSI is reviewed under an abuse-of-discretion standard.
- NEPA requires an EIS only when the action’s environmental effects are “significant”; the central judicial inquiry is the defensibility of the no-significant-impact determination.
- Aesthetic and recreational effects are cognizable under NEPA, but aesthetic harm alone will rarely compel an EIS, particularly where effects are difficult to measure and the setting already includes substantial commercial activity.
- For actions proceeding on an EA/FONSI rather than an EIS, the agency need not conduct an exhaustive alternatives analysis when opponents do not identify specific, feasible alternative sites plausibly overlooked.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit sustained the Corps’ NEPA compliance for a temporary barge-fleeting facility, holding that the agency’s EA/FONSI reasonably supported a finding of no significant impact and that neither asserted aesthetic harms nor undeveloped claims of ecological and cumulative effects required preparation of an EIS.


River Road Alliance, Inc. v. Corps of Eng’rs of U.S. Army, 764 F.2d 445 (7th Cir. 1985)