Laserfiche WebLink
Case 1:08-cv-01624-WJM-NRN Document 166 Filed 03/18/19 USDC Colorado Page 5 of 12 <br /> need only address whether DOE fulfilled its ESA § 7 <br /> consultation duties with respect to water depletion that may <br /> affect Colorado River endangered fish. <br /> Id. (footnote omitted). <br /> C. Current Motion to Dissolve <br /> By letter dated May 2, 2018, DOE transmitted a supplemental BA to FWS. (ECF <br /> No. 160-1.) The supplemental BA reports DOE's efforts to search for all relevant <br /> current or reasonably foreseeable uranium mining and related activities in the area, and <br /> to estimate annual water usage of all these activities. (Id. at 4-7.) The BA also <br /> tabulates all of the estimated water usage. (ld. at 7-10.) <br /> The most notable development reported in the supplemental BA is that, not long <br /> after this Court issued CEC II, a Colorado administrative law judge ruled that the <br /> Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment ("CDPHE") should not have <br /> issued the license under which the Pinon Ridge Mill was to be constructed and <br /> operated. (Id. at 5-6.) The supplemental BA further reports that CDPHE elected not to <br /> appeal the judge's decision, and "therefore the license [was] revoked as of April 26, <br /> 2018." (Id. at 6.) In this light, the supplemental BA announces that the Pinon Ridge Mill <br /> is no longer a reasonably foreseeable action coinciding with renewed ULMP mining, so <br /> DOE would not consider its potential water usage. (Id.) However, perhaps out of a <br /> desire not to appear to be shirking the Court's instructions in CEC Il, DOE included <br /> within the supplemental BA the amount of water the Pinon Ridge Mill had been <br /> expected to consume. (Id.) DOE also included a parting comment about the changing <br /> uranium market and its potential relationship to the defunct Pinon Ridge proposal: <br /> Finally, in the [previous BA's] discussion regarding <br /> cumulative effects from the yet-to-be constructed Pinon <br /> 5 <br />