State Parks Commission Violates State Law and SEPA, Judge Rules
The following is an excerpt from Steve Erickson’s (Whidbey Environmental Action Network) comments concerning this ruling. The ruling is linked below.
SOME PERSONAL COMMENTS FROM STEVE ERICKSON, WEAN LITIGATION COORDINATOR
When Judge Dixon said that he was going to rule, my immediate reaction was “Oh sh**!” Usually in environmental appeals an immediate ruling from the bench is not a good sign. WEAN’s two able attorneys (Zak Griefen and Bryan Telegin from Bricklin and Newman in Seattle) have similar experience. But Judge Dixon then began closely tracking our legal analysis and agreeing with it. It soon became clear that he was ruling in our favor on the first, overarching issue we raised, that the Parks Commission had exceeded its statutory authority. Normally, once a court rules on an overarching issue it does not proceed to rule on secondary issues. Rulings will usually say something like “Because the agency’s decision to eat endangered Pelicans at its annual team building banquet was completely beyond its statutory purpose, we do not reach the question of whether grilling the last Snake River Salmon for desert violates the agency’s internal luncheon rules.” But Judge Dixon instead recognized that his decision might get reviewed by a higher court and for that reason ruled on our secondary argument that Parks had violated the State Environmental Policy Act by 1) not conducting a “worst case analysis” that people would not use Parks and 2) that Parks should have conducted “phased review” of the proposal. In doing so, he explicitly recognized that the “creep factor,” emotional though it is, is an environmental impact because it would displace recreation.
Neither of WEAN’s two attorneys nor I have ever heard a judge issue such a lengthy searching decision from the bench before. It really was extraordinary.
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