## Facts

- The City of Marion, Illinois proposed constructing a dam on Sugar Creek to create a reservoir to supply water to Marion and the Lake of Egypt Water District.
- Because the project would affect waters of the United States, Marion sought a Clean Water Act § 404 permit from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
- The Corps prepared an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) under NEPA in connection with the permitting decision.
- The Corps defined the project’s purpose as providing Marion and the Water District a single-source water supply and structured the EIS around that objective.
- Private landowners and project opponents argued the single-source framing improperly constrained NEPA review by excluding reasonable multi-source and non-reservoir options.
- The Corps issued the § 404 permit after completing the EIS.

## Issues

1. Whether the Corps’ purpose-and-need statement—requiring a single-source water supply—was unreasonably narrow and thereby distorted the NEPA analysis.
2. Whether the EIS satisfied NEPA’s requirement to analyze all reasonable alternatives in depth when it focused on single-source options.

## Decision

- The Seventh Circuit reversed the district court’s summary judgment for the Corps and the City and remanded.
- The court held the Corps defined the project purpose in a manner that improperly limited the range of alternatives.
- The court concluded the EIS failed to conduct the required searching inquiry into reasonable alternatives, including multi-source or non-reservoir approaches.
- The court emphasized it was enforcing NEPA’s procedural requirements, not prohibiting the project as a substantive matter.

## Legal Principles

- NEPA is procedural: for major federal actions significantly affecting the environment, agencies must publicly explain the basis for the chosen plan and its environmental effects.
- An EIS must evaluate all reasonable alternatives in depth; alternatives analysis is central to NEPA compliance.
- An agency has discretion to define a project’s purpose and need, but it may not do so in a way that unreasonably narrows the alternatives or effectively preselects the sponsor’s preferred outcome.
- Courts review NEPA compliance under the Administrative Procedure Act’s arbitrary-and-capricious standard, asking whether the agency took the required hard look at consequences and alternatives.

## Conclusion

The Seventh Circuit required the Corps to revisit its NEPA analysis because the EIS relied on a single-source purpose that improperly constrained consideration of reasonable alternatives, rendering the alternatives analysis legally inadequate.


Simmons v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 120 F.3d 664 (7th Cir. 1997)