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Appeal Deciding Officer 4 <br />the EA fails to disclose whether Oxbow will be required to build roads, clear pads, and construct <br />methane drainage wells within the Springhouse Park Roadless Area outside of the Lease <br />Modification area to mine the additional half - million tons of coal that the Lease Modification <br />will make available. <br />The EA appears to address only the air quality impacts arising from the 35,000- 235,000 tons of <br />coal to be mined within the Lease Modification's boundaries, not the additional half - million tons <br />to be mined as a result of the Lease Modification. <br />The EA predicts only the GHG emissions that will result from the combustion of coal mined in <br />the Lease Modification area, not the additional 0.52 million tons of coal that the Lease <br />Modification will make possible. See EA at 52 -53. <br />It does not appear that any previously- prepared NEPA document has disclosed the impacts of air <br />and pollutants emitted from the Elk Creek Mine's ventilation system and methane drainage <br />wells. <br />Neither the Forest Service nor any other agency has disclosed the impacts of the current mine <br />plan in any NEPA document, since that plan was changed in February 2011. See EA at 134 <br />(BLM's GER/MER) ( "In February of 2011 a ground failure event caused a change in mine plans <br />.... "); id. at 92 (same). <br />The Forest Service failed to disclose the indirect impacts of the agency's consent to the Lease <br />Modification, which will permit Oxbow to access an additional half - million tons of coal it would <br />likely otherwise be unable to remove. The Forest Service must address the impacts of removing <br />that additional half - million tons of coal on remand in a subsequently prepared NEPA document <br />that is made available for public comment. <br />Rules: <br />40 CFR § 1508.7 — "Cumulative impact" is the impact on the environment which results from the <br />incremental impact of the action when added to other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable <br />future actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non - Federal) or person undertakes such <br />other actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant <br />actions taking place over a period of time. <br />40 CFR & 1508.8 — Effects and impacts as used in these regulations are synonymous. Effects <br />includes ecological (such as the effects on natural resources and on the components, structures, <br />and functioning of affected ecosystems), aesthetic, historic, cultural, economic, social, or health, <br />whether direct, indirect, or cumulative. Effects may also include those resulting from actions <br />which may have both beneficial and detrimental effects, even if on balance the agency believes <br />that the effect will be beneficial. <br />40 CFR § 1508.27 — ..."significantly" as used in NEPA requires considerations of both context <br />and intensity... (a) Context... Significance varies with the setting of the proposed action. For <br />