Sierra Club v. Department of the Interior

398 F. Supp. 284, 8 ERC 1013, 5 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20514, 8 ERC (BNA) 1012, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11412
CourtDistrict Court, N.D. California
DecidedJuly 16, 1975
DocketCiv. C-73-0163 WTS
StatusPublished
Cited by12 cases

This text of 398 F. Supp. 284 (Sierra Club v. Department of the Interior) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering District Court, N.D. California primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Sierra Club v. Department of the Interior, 398 F. Supp. 284, 8 ERC 1013, 5 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20514, 8 ERC (BNA) 1012, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11412 (N.D. Cal. 1975).

Opinion

MEMORANDUM OF DECISION AND ORDER

SWEIGERT, District Judge.

This is an action by the plaintiff Sierra Club against the Department of the Interior and the Secretary of the Interi- or (hereafter “the Secretary”) for declaratory and mandatory relief concerning the Secretary’s alleged failure to discharge his statutory and fiduciary duty to protect Redwood National Park from damage caused by logging operations on privately owned lands immediately adjacent to and surrounding certain portions of the Park.

In an earlier Memorandum of Decision, filed herein on May 13th, 1974, this court held that the Secretary does have certain statutory and fiduciary duties with respect to the Park and that plaintiff had alleged in its amended complaint facts which, if established would justify the declaratory and mandatory relief prayed. Sierra Club v. Dept. of the Interior, 376 F.Supp. 90 (N.D.Cal.1974). The court has now heard the evidence and argument and sets forth herein its findings and conclusions.

I. Issue of Standing of the Sierra Club to Sue

The evidence indicates, and the court finds, that the Sierra Club is a national conservation organization having approximately 150,000 members, whose stated corporate purposes include the enhancement and protection by all lawful means of the national and state forests and parks. Representatives of the Sierra Club lobbied extensively and testified before Congress in favor of legislation establishing a Redwood National Park. Since the establishment of the Park in October, 1968, the Sierra Club has continued to display an active interest in its administration by preparing and submitting to the defendants critical comments on Park studies performed by them, by giving additional Congressional testimony, and by engaging in numerous meetings, discussions, and oral and written communications with the defendants concerning the Park.

In addition, individual members of the Sierra Club have used the lands included within the Park, both before and after its establishment, for various purposes, including hiking, camping, photography, and other forms of physical and spiritual recreation. To the extent that the resources of the Park are being damaged by the Secretary’s failure to take ade *286 quate steps to protect them from the surrounding logging operations, as is discussed in more detail below, the aesthetic, conservational, and recreational interests of these individual members of the plaintiff have been injured in fact within the meaning of Sierra Club v. Morton, 405 U.S. 727, 92 S.Ct. 1361, 31 L.Ed.2d 636 (1972) and United States v. Students Challenging Regulatory Agency Procedures (SCRAP), 412 U.S. 669, 683-90, 93 S.Ct. 2405, 37 L.Ed.2d 254 (1973). The filing of this lawsuit on behalf of the members of the Sierra Club was duly authorized by the Executive Committee of its Board of Directors on June 16, 1973.

Under these facts plaintiff Sierra Club has standing to maintain this action. Sierra Club v. Morton, supra; United States v. SCRAP, supra; Natural Resources Defense Council v. EPA, 507 F.2d 905, 910 (9th Cir. 1974); Sierra Club v. Leslie Salt, 354 F.Supp. 1099, 1103 (N.D.Cal.1972).

II. On the Merits

The Legislative Background:

The Redwood National Park, situated in the counties of Del Norte and Humboldt, Northern California, was created on October 2, 1968, by the Redwood National Park Act, 16 U.S.C. §§ 79a-79j (hereafter “the Act”). The purpose of the park, as set forth in the Act, is

“to preserve significant examples of the primeval coastal redwood (Sequoia semper-virens) forests and the streams and seashores with which they are associated for purposes of public inspiration, enjoyment, and scientific study . . ..” 16 U.S.C. § 79a.

The Act authorized acquisition of not more than 58,000 acres of previously privately owned land for which the United States was to pay just compensation, 16 U.S.C. § 79c(b). It authorized $92,000,000 for this land acquisition, 16 U.S.C. § 79j; of that $92,000,000 only $72,000,000 has been actually appropriated thus far by the Congress; of that $72,000,000, $2,800,000 remains unspent.

As stated in this court’s previous opinion the issue for decision is whether the Secretary, since the establishment of the Park, has taken reasonable steps to protect the resources of the Park and, if not, whether his failure to do so has been under the circumstances arbitrary, capricious, or an abuse of discretion. As this court also pointed out in its previous opinion, reviews of decisions of the executive branch — such as here requested — lie in the narrowest area of judicial review wherein the court must stop short of merely substituting its own judgment for that of the Secretary. His acts are presumptively reasonable and in accordance with law and are subject to judicial intervention only when the executive conduct fails to accord with law or is otherwise arbitrary or an abuse of discretion.

In the pending case the conduct of the Secretary must be considered in the light of a very unique statute — a statute which did more than establish a national park; it also expressly vested the Secretary with authority to take certain specifically stated steps designed to protect the Park from damage caused by logging operations on the surrounding privately owned lands.

As the legislative history shows, these specific provisions were put into the statute because the Park boundaries authorized by Congress represented a compromise and did not include certain lands within the Redwood Creek Watershed upslope and upstream from the southernmost portion of the Park. Out of its concern that continued logging operations on those privately owned lands could cause damage within the Park, the Congress expressly invested the Secretary with these specific powers to take administrative action designed to protect it.

These specific powers include:

(1) power to modify the boundaries of the Park with particular attention to minimizing siltation of the streams, *287 damage to the timber and preservation of the scenery, 16 U.S.C. § 79b(a).

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398 F. Supp. 284, 8 ERC 1013, 5 Envtl. L. Rep. (Envtl. Law Inst.) 20514, 8 ERC (BNA) 1012, 1975 U.S. Dist. LEXIS 11412, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/sierra-club-v-department-of-the-interior-cand-1975.