Named Individual Members of The SAN ANTONIO Conservation Society v. The Texas Highway Department Et Al., and The U.S. Department of Transportation
Named Individual Members of The SAN ANTONIO Conservation Society v. The Texas Highway Department Et Al., and The U.S. Department of Transportation
968
91 S.Ct. 368
27 L.Ed.2d 388
This case disturbs me greatly. On December 7, 1970, this Court stayed the
construction of two federally funded highways in order to save two public
parks. One park serves the people of Memphis, Tennessee.1 The park in this
case is for the rest and recreation of the the people of San Antonio, Texas. Both
cases involve important and timely problems of interpretation of 138 of the
Federal Aid Highway Act, passed by Congress to stem the destruction of our
Nation's parks by highway builders. These cases give this Court an opportunity
to insure that lower courts and certain federal agencies administer this vital
environment-saving legislation in the way that Congrees intended. The
Tennessee case is still scheduled for oral argument at the earliest possible date
January 11, 1971. Yet, the Court now dissolves the stay previously entered in
the San Antonio case, 400 U.S. 961, 91 S.Ct. 361, 27 L.Ed.2d 381, and denies
The San Antonio park has two golf courses, a zoo, a sunken garden, an open air
theater and many acres of open space, covered with trees, flowers, and running
brooks. It is a lovely place for people to retreat from the frantic pace of bustling
urban life to enjoy the simple pleasures of open space, quiet solitude, and clean
air. It is a refuge for young and old alikethe kind of a park where a family
man can take his wife and children or lovers can while away a sunny Sunday
afternoon together. After today's decision, the people of San Antonio and the
birds and animals that make their home in the park will share their quiet retreat
with an ugly, smelly stream of traffic pouring down a super six-lane 'North
Expressway.' Trees, shrubs, and flowers will be mown down. The cars will
spew forth air and noise pollution contaminating those acres not buried under
concrete. Mothers will grow anxious and desert the park lest their children be
crushed beneath the massive wheels of interstate trucks.
The San Antonio Conservation Society and its individual members filed suit to
block federal approval and funding of this expressway. The United States
District Court held that the Secretary of Transportation and state officials were
free to proceed with federal funding and construction of two segments of the
road coming into the park from north and south. It retained jurisdiction to
review any later decision on the design and routing of the connecting middle
section, which had not been formally approved by the Secretary.
'It is hereby declared to be the national policy that special effort should be
made to preserve the natural beauty of the countryside and public park and
Even the Secretary admits that he has failed to make formal findings about
feasible and prudent alternative routes. Respondents have argued that formal
findings are unnecessary. This seems an unlikely reading of the Act because
without findings it will be difficult for courts to review the Secretary's
determinations, and the intent of Congress to protect parklands is likely to be
frustrated.2 Furthermore, it is simply not realistic to consider the construction of
this expressway 'section by section' as the District Court and the Secretary of
Transportation have done here. Once construction is begun and heavy
investment made on the two end segments, the available options for routing the
middle segment are severely limited. In the words of the Act alternatives for the
middle segment which were 'feasible and prudent' will no longer be 'feasible'
once the two end segments are constructed.
In the last several years, Congress has enacted coordinated legislation designed
to protect our Nation's environment from destruction by water pollution, air
pollution, and noise pollution. This legislation has come about in response to
aroused citizens who have awakened to the importance of a decent environment
for our Nation's well-being and our very survival. Section 138 of the Federal
Aid Highway Act and the National Environmental Policy Act are two major
parts of this broad plan. The former was designed to prevent the systematic and
thoughtless burial of public parks under the concrete of federally funded
highways. The implementation of this legislation by the Department of
Transportation is disheartening. The Act prohibits the Secretary from approving
highway construction through parklands unless there is no 'feasible and
prudent' alternative. Congress has assigned a high value to parks, trees, and
clean air. Parks are not to be condemned and taken in order to try to save a few
dollars on a multi-million dollar highway project. Congress was willing to
sacrifice parks only when there is 'no feasible alternative.' Yet the Secretary has
proceeded without formal findings to approve two segments of a highway
which devour parkland. And the two segments now approved stand like gun
barrels pointing into the heartland of the park. The Secretary and his staff are
not wholly inexperienced in highway construction. They know full well the
difficulty of preserving the park's heartland once the barrels have been loaded
and the guns cocked. The efforts of our citizens and the Congress to save our
parklands and to preserve our environment deserve a more hospitable reception
and more faithful observance than they have apparently found either in the
Executive Branch, or thus far, in the courts.
9
Mr. Justice DOUGLAS, with whom Mr. Justice BLACK and Mr. Justice
BRENNAN concur, dissenting.
10
This case is here on a stay presented to Mr. Justice BLACK and by him
referred to the Court. We granted a stay pending consideration of a petition for
certiorari before judgment of the Circuit Court of Appeals, which has now been
filed. The Court dissolves the stay and denies certiorari, all without any
opinion. I dissent. This is an important case that involves the construction of 9.6
miles of an expressway through 250 acres of the Brackenridge Basin-Olmos
Basin parklands situated at the headwaters of the San Antonio River within the
city of San Antonio. It involves the application of a new lawthe National
Environmental Policy Act (42 U.S.C. 4331), which was signed by the
President on January 1, 1970. The new Act applies by 102(2) to 'all agencies
of the federal government' and provides that such agencies shall include in
every recommendation for
11
12
There can be no doubt that federal funding of a state highway project is covered
by the 1970 Act. The most controversial aspect of the highway design and
location is that it proposes to run a massive elevated eight- and six-lane
expressway through a park in San Antonio. The Brackenridge-Olmos Basin
parklands is a unique park, recreational, and open spaces area. Specific land
uses include the original Brackenridge Park grant, the Sunken Gardens, and
adjacent outdoor amphitheater, the San Jacinto Park, the Alamo Stadium, the
San Antonio Zoo, the Olmos Basin picnic area, the Franklin Fields, and
numerous other parks, public and open space areas.
13
Many including Senator Metcalf of Montana had sounded the alarm over the
13
Many including Senator Metcalf of Montana had sounded the alarm over the
devastation caused by federal highways:1
14
'Today the land is being covered by four and six lane highways, supermarket
parking lots, suburban high rise apartment buildings and lost to itself and to the
people alike.'
15
16
17
18
'Poor land-use policies and urban decay' can no longer be deferred, the report
stated. Id., at 5.
19
'We no longer have the margins for error that we once enjoyed. The ultimate
issue posed by shortsighted, conflicting, and often selfish demands and
pressures upon the finite resources of the earth are clear.' Id., at 5.
20
And so the Act was drafted 'to assure that all Federal agencies plan and work
22
On August 4, 1970, the State, after revising its plans, agreed to the federal plan
for the end segments of the projects. But we are advised that it was not until
August 13, 1970, that the Secretary of Transportation approved the construction
by Texas of the two end segments; and he has not yet approved the middle
section. It is said:
23
'The Secretary expressly reserved final approval on the middle section because
there is much parkland contained in the middle section.
24
'As a matter of fact, one of the primary reasons the Secretary has not approved
the middle section is due to the consideration of the views expressed by
plaintiffs in opposition to the proposed route the middle section will take
through the parklands.'
25
We were told on November 16, 1970 that there are 'at least four (4) possible
alternative routes on which the middle section could be constructed to connect
the two ends which the District Court has approved.'
26
That is to say, 11 months after the Environmental Policy Act became effective,
the gist of the location problem so far as the park is concerned had not been
resolved.
27
The Solicitor General contends that the two end segments were approved in
1969. But the facts are that while Secretary Volpe gave preliminary approval of
these segments on December 23, 1969, he withheld authorization of federal
funds pending an agreement by the State to study further the middle segment.
As already stated, Texas agreed to the end segments on August 4, 1970, and the
Secretary gave his 'unqualified approval' and authorization of them on August
13, 1970, long after the new Act became effective. Yet no findings under the
1970 Act were made.
28
It seems obvious, moreover, that approval of the two end segments has some
effect on the alternatives for the middle section. For once the expressway is
split into segments and each segment considered separately, the environmental
impact of the entire project will turn at least in part on the fact that the two ends
are already built.
29
The Solicitor General states: 'The Secretary could well approve a route in the
middle segment that would involve little or no use of parklands, or substantially
less than the proposed route location now contemplates.'
30
Thus we have a fair indication that some of the park is going to be a freeway
regardless. Yet as I read the Act a federal highway project 'significantly
affecting' even an acre of park land cannot be launched without a finding on the
environmental consequences.
31
32
33
How can end segments of a highway aimed at the heart of a park be approved
without appraising the dangers of drawing a dotted line between the two
segments?
34
How important is the park to the people of San Antonio? How many use it? For
what purposes? What wildlife does it embrace? To what extent will a massive
eight and six-lane highway decrease the value of the park as a place of solitude
or recreation?
35
What are the alternatives that would save the park completely? Could a passage
by way of tunnels be devised? Could the freeway be rerouted so as to avoid the
parklands completely and leave it as a sanctuary?
36
Is not the ruination of a sanctuary created for urban people an 'irreversible and
irretrievable' loss within the meaning of 102(2)(C)?
37
I do not think we will have a more important case this Term. Congress has been
moving with alarm against the perils of the environment. One need not be an
expert to realize how awful the consequences are when urban sanctuaries are
filled with structures, paved with concrete or asphalt, and converted into
thoroughfares of high speed modern traffic.
38
Those are some of the things with which Congress was concerned in the 1970
Act.
39
40
I would continue the stay, grant the petition for certiorari, 28 U.S.C. 1254(1),
and let the bureaucracy know that 102(2)(C) is the law of the land to be
observed meticulously.
APPENDIX
41
Much of the legislative history of the Act is a discussion of air pollution, water
pollution, and solid waste disposal. But when specifics are mentioned highway
problems are present. And the mention of highway problems at every stage in
the legislative history leaves no doubt that the Department of Transportation's
highway programs are subject to the Act.
42
At the Senate Hearings on the Act, the Department was represented by the
Assistant Secretary for Urban Systems and Environment. He immediately
recognized the reason he was present.
43
'I think that perhaps the reason that the Department of Transportation was asked
to have a representative here before your committee was because within the
purview of the Department of Transportation has lain in the past and will
continue to lie in the future many of the activities that, at least, are most
apparent to the people of the country in the field of environmental impact.'
44
He talked about the views of those people who live in metropolitan areas of the
46
Included in the House Hearings is a letter from the Chairman of the House
Subcommittee considering the 1970 Act to the Chairman of the President's
Council on Environmental Quality which notes that neither the Department of
Transportation nor the Department of Interior have promulgated the procedures
they will use under the Act. 'The fact there has not been full compliance by
these Departments disturbs me greatly.' House Hearings, No. 91-32, p. 67
(1969). And before the House Hearings were printed the Department of
Transportation had complied with the request and the Department's procedures
under the Act were printed with the House Hearings. Id., at 153-159.
47
The debates on the Act on the floors of both Houses were relatively short,
attesting in some measure to the popularity of enacting an extensive
environmental bill. Yet just as the Senate and House Hearings had
demonstrated that the Department of Transportation was an integral part of the
Federal Government's creation of environmental problems, so, too, did the
debates alert one to the fact that highways caused environmental problems
when not approached from an ecological perspective. In the House only a
handful of speakers addressed the bill for any length of time and all spoke in
broad generalities. Rep. Pelly, a member of the subcommittee which considered
the Act, provided the focus on the problems of highways.
48
'We have experts in the field of transportation coping with the problem of
moving people from one city to another in the least possible time with the
greatest degree of safety. We have constructed a vast system of interstate
highways to accomplish this. Yet at the same time, we have created serious
problems of soil erosion, stream pollution, and urban displacement.
49
'* * * The experts have, by and large, done their job well, but we must
The Senate debates were also brief and again often dealt largely with the
generalities of air and water pollution. Senator Allott, a member of the
committee which considered the Act, recognized this and reminded his
colleagues that more was involved.
51
'I think there is a little too much of a tendency, probably not in the committees
involved here, but on the part of the public, to regard environment as involving
only air and water pollution * * * the environment does not involve only water
and air; * * * it involves noiseand we are all becoming acutely conscious of
this factor. More and more as time goes onenvironmental questions will also
involve land distribution, planning for the future, what kind of future cities we
will plan, and what we will do about the ghettos for the ghettos are a part of the
environmental picture. * * *' Id., at 29061.
52
53
54
Thus there can be no doubt but that Congress intended the Act to apply to
federally funded highways and the Department of Transportation.
See No. 1066, Citizens to Preserve Overton Park, Inc. et al. v. Volpe, 400 U.S.
939, 91 S.Ct. 246, 27 L.Ed.2d 262.
Order 5610.1, issued October 7, 1970. But the Secretary has not been willing to
apply his regulation to this case. In my view the regulation alone is sufficient
reason to reverse and remand for findings of fact. Cf. Thorpe v. Housing
Authority of City of Durham, 393 U.S. 268, 89 S.Ct. 518, 21 L.Ed.2d 474
(1969).
1
The Federal Government is providing the funds for 50% of the cost of this
expressway.