Sokol v. Kennedy

• Decision Date: 16 December 1999
• Docket Number: No. 99-1804NE,99-1804NE
• Parties: (8th Cir. 2000) David L. Sokol, Appellant, v. Roger G. Kennedy, in his official capacity as Director of the National Park Service; Bruce Babbitt, in his official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior; and United States of America, Appellees. Submitted:
• Court: U.S. Court of Appeals — Eighth Circuit

Page 876

210 F.3d 876 (8th Cir. 2000)

David L. Sokol, Appellant, v. Roger G. Kennedy, in his official capacity as Director of the National Park Service; Bruce Babbitt, in his official capacity as Secretary of the United States Department of the Interior; and United States of America, Appellees.

No. 99-1804NE

United States Court of Appeals FOR THE EIGHTH CIRCUIT

Submitted: December 16, 1999

Filed: April 10, 2000

On Appeal from the United States District Courtfor the District of Nebraska

Before RICHARD S. ARNOLD and LOKEN, Circuit Judges, and WEBB,¹ District Judge.

RICHARD S. ARNOLD, Circuit Judge.

David Sokol, a landowner, appeals from a summary judgment upholding the boundaries for the Niobrara Scenic River area set by the National Park Service under the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. The District Court held that the Park Service correctly chose which land adjacent to the Niobrara would be included within the protections of the Act. The Park Service, however, did not select the land on the basis of the "outstandingly remarkable values" standard required by the Act. We therefore reverse and remand.

I.

The Wild and Scenic Rivers Act, 16 U.S.C. 1271 - 1287, protects selected free-flowing rivers that "with their immediate environments, possess outstandingly remarkable . . . values." 16 U.S.C. 1271. In 1991, Congress amended the Act to designate a portion of Nebraska's Niobrara River as a protected Scenic River.² The amendment did not specify which or how much land in the immediate environment of the Niobrara River was ultimately to be included within the Act's protections.³ Instead, it directed the Secretary of the Interior, pursuant to 16 U.S.C. 1274(b), to select detailed boundaries for protected land in the Niobrara River area, totaling no more than 320 acres per river mile. The Secretary delegated this authority to the Park Service.

In 1992, the Park Service began the decision-making process to establish boundaries for the river area, and to generate the required General Management Plan and Environmental Impact Statement. This process was thorough and lengthy, lasting over four years. The Park Service formed a planning team, led by Natural Resource. Specialist William Conrod, to gather and analyze information on the Niobrara River area from a wide variety of public and private sources. The planning team also developed its own information from personal observations and field studies of resources along the river. The planning team assembled a large amount of information that was used to create "resource maps." The team used these maps to develop boundary alternatives, seeking to maximize protection of various resources in the area.The Park Service also organized the Niobrara Scenic River Advisory Commission, a body of local residents, businessmen, environmental groups, and state officials, that contributed to the process and received public comment on the planned boundaries.

The Park Service did not evaluate the land adjacent to the Niobrara River in terms of "outstandingly remarkable" values. Instead, from the beginning, the planning team analyzed the Niobrara River area in terms of "significant" and "important" values. Park Service officials were more comfortable with the significance and importance standards because they were familiar with them from other regulatory contexts. Additionally, the planning team felt that the term, "outstandingly remarkable," was not clear and was relevant only to the selection of new rivers for inclusion in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. Nevertheless, the planning team purported to adopt the outstandingly-remarkable-values standard retroactively after Mr. Sokol complained, at the September 15, 1995, meeting of the Advisory Commission, that the significant-values standard violated the Act. The planning team's documents and field notes before Mr. Sokol's complaint spoke only in terms of significance or importance. Subsequently, the draft and final boundary alternatives, published by the team in 1996, explained that "significant" and "important" were being used merely as synonyms for "outstandingly remarkable." By the end of the process, the Park Service claimed to have dropped the significant/important-values standard altogether, and the Park Service's final Record of Decision speaks only in terms of "outstandingly remarkable values."

In 1997, Mr. Sokol brought this suit in the District Court. He alleged that the Park Service had violated the Act by failing to apply an outstandingly-remarkable-values standard when selecting boundaries for the Niobrara Scenic River area. The defendants replied, first, that this standard did not apply because the Park Service had complete discretion under the Act to establish the boundaries as it saw fit. Second, they maintained that even if the outstandingly-remarkable-values standard was required, the Park Service had in fact used it. The District Court granted summary judgment for the defendants, upholding the decision of the Park Service. Mr. Sokol brought this appeal. We reverse and remand.

II.

Under the Administrative Procedure Act, we limit our review of the Park Service's administrative action to a determination of whether the action was "arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law." 5 U.S.C. 706(2)(A). The Park Service failed to apply the relevant statutory authority in making its decision. It selected land for inclusion in the Niobrara Scenic River area without identifying and seeking to protect outstandingly remarkable values, as required by the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act.

We reject the defendants' first argument that the Park Service was free to select land for the river area as it saw fit, without regard for the outstandingly remarkable values that Congress sought to protect in the Niobrara. The defendants rely on 16 U.S.C. 1274(b), pursuant to which Congress charged the Park Service to establish detailed boundaries. They argue that Section 1274(b) allows them complete discretion in choosing land, within the Section's acreage limitation.⁴ While it is true that Section.. . ..)" 16 U.S.C. 1274(b) 1274(b) itself says nothing to the contrary, the defendants' argument completely ignores controlling language elsewhere in the Act.

Each river area in the Wild and Scenic River System must be "administered in such manner as to protect and enhance the values which caused it to be included" in the System. 16 U.S.C. 1281(a). The values which cause a river area to be included in the System are the "outstandingly remarkable . . . values" of the river and of the related land adjacent to it.⁵ Selecting detailed boundaries is an administrative act; it is an alteration of the river area already established by Congress.⁶ As an administrative act, Section 1281(a) applied to the Park Service's selection of boundaries. Far from exercising complete discretion under that Section, the Park Service was required to make the boundary selection to protect and enhance the oustandingly remarkable values that caused the Niobrara River area to be included in the System.

Accordingly, we reject the defendants' contention that the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act provided no meaningful standard for the selection of detailed boundaries;this interpretation conflicts with the administrative duty clearly set out in Section 1281(a).⁷ It also contradicts the Park Service's own prior interpretation of the Act.⁸ The defendants argue correctly that the Park Service was not required to include only land with outstandingly remarkable values. The Park Service's statutory duty was to establish detailed boundaries, within the acreage limits of Section 1274(b), that would protect and enhance the outstandingly remarkable values that caused the river area to be included in the Wild and Scenic Rivers System. This duty does not always bar the administering agency from including unremarkable land; indeed, the Act could require such inclusion where necessary to protect outstandingly remarkable resources, e.g. because of the need for buffer zones around resources or because of discontinuities in a resource's locations. Equally, the Act does not require that the boundaries encompass all the outstandingly remarkable resources; this might be impossible given the acreage limitation. Neither categorical alternative is required by our decision. The Act allows the administering agency discretion to decide which boundaries would best protect and enhance the outstandingly remarkable values in the river area, but it must identify and seek to protect those values, and not some broader category.

We also reject the defendants' second argument -- that the Park Service did, in fact, identify and seek to protect the outstandingly remarkable values of the Niobrara River area. As the defendants admit, the planning team consistently analyzed resources in the Niobrara for their "significance" and "importance." These terms are not synonymous with "outstandingly remarkable." Significance and importance are much broader terms. They include far more than the "unique, rare, or exemplary" qualities that the defendants themselves have recognized are denoted by the outstandingly-remarkable- values standard. See Technical Report of the Interagency Wild and Scenic Rivers Coordinating Council, J.A. at 79. In any given group, many things can be significant or important. By definition, however, only a few things can be rare or exemplary, and only one can be unique.

The Park Service did not choose the terms "significance" and "importance" because they were synonyms for "outstandingly remarkable." These terms were derived from a separate legal standard used by Park Service officials to evaluate potential park lands,⁹ a standard with which they were more familiar than the Wild and Scenic River Act's outstandingly-remarkable-values standard. J.A. at 48. The defendants now contend that while the terms of the park standard were used, the planning team meant ...