Merits Scrutinized : New Laws Help Stymie Grand Plans

Are large public works projects like Hoover Dam, the federal interstate highway system and the California Water Project things of the past, vestigial symbols of a society that has lost its appetite for grand schemes?

That gloomy assessment is coming from some quarters in the wake of a recent decision by New York state to abandon Westway, a huge highway and real estate development on Manhattan’s West Side.

Some observers have suggested that environmentalists and consumer interest groups, utilizing a wide array of new federal and state laws that have been enacted in both areas in the last 15 years, can delay or kill almost any major project.

Too Many ‘Hoops’

Lewis Blakey, chief of civil works planning for the Army Corps of Engineers, said “it’s probably true that you’re not going to see the larger project anymore because we’ve constructed so many hoops . . . that it’s almost impossible to get a large project through them.”

Blakey and others point to a long list of programs--the Clinch River breeder reactor in Tennessee, the “Garrison Diversion” water project in North Dakota, several nuclear power plants and freeways from coast to coast--that have been stopped, or have experienced long delays, due to opposition from environmentalists and others.

In California, such a list would include the Diablo Canyon nuclear plant (delayed), the Peripheral Canal (killed), a liquefied natural gas terminal at Point Conception in Santa Barbara County (abandoned) and the Embarcadero Freeway in San Francisco (never completed and now a candidate for demolition).

Mystical Dimension

Sen. Daniel Patrick Moynihan (D-N. Y.) introduced a mystical dimension into the discussion when he said, after the decision to give up on Westway, “It says something about us that we can’t do these things anymore.”

Later, Moynihan explained: “There is a kind of stasis that is beginning to settle into our public life. We cannot reach decisions . . . .”

But others disagree.

“It is a myth that huge projects can be held up by minor legal technicalities,” said John R. Phillips, director of the Center for Law in the Public Interest, in Los Angeles.

Phillips’ group stopped construction of the Century Freeway, between Los Angeles International Airport and the city of Norwalk, for seven years with a federal court injunction based on environmental and other objections. However, construction of the $1.7-billion project now is under way, under terms of a court order that requires the federal and state governments to build housing and a light rail line, as well as the freeway.

Judges “act only when the most serious allegations are proved, when there is overwhelming evidence that government agencies have behaved improperly,” Phillips said. “Sen. Moynihan, of all people, ought to expect that the laws Congress spends so much time enacting . . . will be lived up to.”

Rep. James J. Howard (D-N. J.), chairman of the House Public Works and Transportation Committee, disagreed with Moynihan’s pessimistic appraisal of the Westway outcome.

“I wouldn’t say this (Westway) is the death knell for large public works projects . . . “ Howard said. “If they’re worthwhile projects, they can’t be tied up.”

Westway, he said, was “not a desirable project” because it “would have used $700 million from the (federal) highway trust fund to fill in 10% of the Hudson River for a private real estate development.”

Westway was to have been a 4.2-mile project, running from the Battery, at the foot of Manhattan, to 42nd Street and including a new interstate highway, a 93-acre state park and about 100 acres of residential, commercial and industrial development.

Highway in a Tunnel

The plan called for much of the six-lane highway to be built in a tunnel, pushed through 200 acres of landfill that would be constructed in the river, while the park and real estate developments would have been placed on the new land created on top of the highway tunnel.

The cost was estimated recently to be $2.3 billion, but critics charged that the project would have cost at least twice as much by the time of its scheduled completion in 1995. Because an interstate highway was included, the Federal Highway Administration would have paid 90% of project costs.

Supporters argued that Westway would greatly improve traffic flow, would provide badly needed park space for New York and would help to rebuild a deteriorating section of Hudson River waterfront.

They said also that the project would create 36,000 “man years” in new jobs during the construction period and, once built, would generate about 6,300 permanent jobs and add at least $33 million to the city’s tax base.

Powerful Alliance

With the federal government paying 90% of the bill, this looked like quite a bargain, and a powerful alliance of bankers, realtors, contractors, union leaders and politicians lined up behind the project.

But there was opposition from the start.

Many residents of neighborhoods bordering the proposed project feared that high-rise office buildings and luxury apartments would be built atop the landfill, pushing up Manhattan’s already-astronomical rents and making it even more difficult to catch a glimpse of the river.

Others questioned the use of federal tax dollars to pay for private real estate development.

“It really is a real estate speculation scheme, traveling under the guise of a transportation project,” said Rep. Ted Weiss (D-N. Y.), in whose district Westway would have been built.

The New York Clean Air Campaign and other mass-transit advocates wanted the state to take advantage of a 1973 federal law to use most of the $1.7 billion in federal funds earmarked for Westway to help rebuild New York City’s battered bus and subway systems.

Despite this opposition, however, the Army Corps of Engineers issued a landfill permit to the state in 1981. (The corps is responsible for granting such permits in navigable waters.) The start of construction appeared to be close at hand, when the Atlantic Coast striped bass swam into the picture.

Specialists in the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the National Marine Fisheries Service found many young striped bass around the rotting midtown piers in winter, apparently trying to escape the icy temperatures farther up the Hudson River. Those specialists believed that the proposed Westway landfill would pose a serious threat to the bass, which have been disappearing from other Atlantic Coast habitats.

A coalition of environmentalists and mass transit supporters sued in federal court, charging that the project violated both the National Environmental Policy Act and the federal Clean Water Act.

After a 1982 trial, U.S. District Judge Thomas P. Griesa found that Westway posed a potential danger to young striped bass, issued a temporary injunction against the project and ordered the Corps of Engineers and the New York State Department of Transportation to study the problem further.

In May, 1984, the corps issued a draft environmental statement that said construction of Westway would have a “significant adverse impact” on young fish.

Corps Reversed Self

But, six months later, in the final environmental statement, the corps reversed itself and said the damage would be “minor.”

The plaintiffs went back to court, Griesa held a second trial and, in early August, he issued a permanent injunction against the project, blistering the federal and state agencies for failing to explain the important change that was made between the draft and the final environmental documents.

In September, the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said Griesa had gone too far in issuing a permanent injunction against Westway construction but upheld his crucial refusal to allow the corps to issue the landfill permit.

In the meantime, the Clean Air Campaign moved its anti-Westway efforts to Washington, enlisting valuable assistance from the National Taxpayers Union and the Environmental Policy Institute in an attempt to cut off federal funding for the project.

They were successful. On the same day that the appellate court decision was announced in New York, the House of Representatives voted 287 to 132 to eliminate money for Westway from next year’s federal highway budget.

Decide on Smaller Road

Faced with that double blow, New York Gov. Mario M. Cuomo and New York City Mayor Edward I. Koch decided on Sept. 19 to trade in the Westway funds for money to fix up the buses and subways and to build a smaller road on the Lower West Side.

In the aftermath, Frank J. Macchiarola, president of the New York City Partnership, a powerful coalition of businessmen, union leaders and educators that had backed Westway, blamed Judge Griesa for “overreaching the proper role of the judiciary” in halting construction.

Macchiarola, former chancellor of the New York City public schools, said also that the project fell victim to “legislative license to protect the environment at all costs--in this case, to protect more fish than had to be protected.”

Macchiarola said that “too many groups have a veto” over projects like Westway because of a plethora of local, state and federal environmental and consumer protection laws.

‘Boondoggles’ Defeated

Marcy Benstock, who has directed the Clean Air Campaign’s anti-Westway efforts for 11 years, said: “I agree that the coalition of taxpayer groups and environmental groups is now defeating more phenomenally expensive, environmentally damaging boondoggles than they’ve been able to do in the past. But that doesn’t mean this city and this country can’t still do magnificent things. It just means that a certain kind of pork-barrel project won’t be approved.”

A staff member of a key U.S. Senate committee, who asked not to be identified, agreed.

“People are taking a much closer look at whether a project is economically justified and environmentally sound,” this staff member said. “There is less willingness in Congress to turn the other cheek and vote federal money for a local project in hopes that your turn will come next.”

Another Senate source said that lack of funding was just as important a barrier to large public works projects as opposition from environmentalists or others.

“We’re looking at a huge federal deficit, and competition for available funds is fierce,” this staff member said. “Any project that smells of boondoggle is going to get pretty careful scrutiny.”

Several scholars who have studied the environmental approval process agreed that there are many more laws on the books and that groups have become much more skillful in using them.

“I think it’s generally true that it’s very tough to get approval for one of these projects, especially in California,” said Lyna Wiggins, assistant professor of civil engineering at Stanford University, who has studied the problems that power companies have had in trying to build new plants.

“People are more sophisticated in using the environmental redress process to oppose things,” Wiggins said. “‘NEPA (the National Environmental Policy Act, passed in 1969) has been around long enough so people have learned how to use it.”

‘A Lot of Legal Measures’

Said Ron Kirby of the Urban Institute, in Washington, D. C., “There are a lot of legal measures around now that you can use if you happen to be opposed to one of these projects.”

Michael Teitz, professor of planning at UC Berkeley, said that “very few people would disagree that it’s much more difficult to build major projects than it used to be. The disagreement would come over whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing.”

To environmentalists, it is clearly a good thing.

Brent Blackwelder, director of water resources for the Environmental Policy Institute in Washington, said, “It’s true you have a larger number of citizens who are aware of governmental processes now; but, rather than be sad about that, it should be seen as a great public service.”

Blackwelder said that his organization has been involved in stopping about 150 undesirable projects, at a saving of more than $25 billion to taxpayers.

But others believe that the environmental review process has gone too far.

Former California Gov. Edmund G. (Pat) Brown said that the vast California Water Project, which moves surplus Northern California water through a series of aqueducts and pumping stations to semi-arid Southern California, could not have been built under present-day circumstances.

“No, not a chance,” Brown said in an interview. “If you had to get an environmental impact statement on the water project, it never would have happened. The farmers in the (Sacramento-San Joaquin) Delta, who were getting free water, would have sued us. The big farmers who stopped the Peripheral Canal would have sued us. The environmentalists would have been all over us.”

The former governor added, “I think something has to be done to move these projects along and limit the number of people who can file environmental objections.”

Two Dams Dropped

Lewis Blakey of the Corps of Engineers said that two major dams--Tocks Island, on the Delaware River, and Merrimac, on the Missouri River--have been dropped in recent years because of stiff opposition from environmental groups.

On the other hand, last May the corps opened the biggest project in its history--a $2-billion, 234-mile canal connecting the Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers, which was built despite strong environmental objections. And the corps is now authorized to build 40 new projects, some costing as much as $400 million.

Highway construction is proceeding at a furious pace in many parts of the country.

About $1 billion will be spent this year and in each of the next four years to expand and improve freeways and other roads in the Houston area. The money will come from a doubling of the Texas gasoline tax (from 5 cents a gallon to 10) and from sharp increases in vehicle registration fees.

Caltrans has contracted for about $1 billion worth of construction work statewide in the current fiscal year. Included in that total is $44 million for the first 12 contracts on the long-delayed Century Freeway.

Construction of new rail transit systems in Atlanta, Miami, Washington, D. C., and other cities has been slowed by reduced federal funding, but environmental and other objections have not stopped any of these programs.

Process More Frustrating

“The world has changed,” Prof. Teitz of UC Berkeley said. “The days are gone when a handful of people could decide a project should be built and it would be built. A lot more people have standing now who never did before. That means the process is longer and more frustrating but not necessarily worse.”

“We always like to blame the environmentalists,” said Rep. Glenn M. Anderson (D-Harbor City), “but we in Congress passed a law that said any major project built with federal participation must have an environmental impact statement. Once we did that, it automatically signaled community groups to take a look at what those impacts are going to be, which takes a lot of time and often means going to court.

“But I suppose that’s part of the democratic process,” Anderson continued. “If the project is a good one, and you stay with it, it’ll get through. Why, it’s taken 20 years to get the Century Freeway going, but we’re finally doing it. It’s my feeling--perhaps it’s my confidence in democracy--that any project that has merit will get built.”

FATE OF MAJOR PUBLIC WORKS PROJECTS

Some major public works projects across the country have been abandoned in recent years because of opposition from environmentalists and other groups, but others have been completed despite these objections.

Among those killed are:

Westway: A 4.2-mile highway and real estate development on New York City’s west side that would have cost at least $2.3 billion. Westway was dropped after a U.S. court ruled that the project violated federal environmental laws and the House of Representatives voted to remove it from next year’s federal highway budget.

Clinch River Breeder Reactor: This new kind of nuclear reactor, which proponents said would have “bred”’ its own plutonium fuel while generating virtually endless supplies of electric power, at a plant near Oak Ridge, Tenn., was killed by the U.S. Senate in 1983, in the face of opposition from anti-nuclear activists, environmentalists and fiscal conservatives.

SST: The national effort to produce a supersonic transport plane was canceled by Congress in 1971 because of high cost and fears of polluting the environment.

Peripheral Canal: This 43-mile canal would have carried Sacramento River water around the Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta to the aqueduct that brings water to central and southern California. The project, opposed by northern California environmentalists and the two largest growers in the San Joaquin Valley, was overwhelmingly defeated by California voters in a June, 1982, referendum.

Embarcadero Freeway: Originally, this was to have linked the Bay Bridge with the Golden Gate Bridge, running along San Francisco’s eastern edge. But a “freeway revolt” in the late 1950s and early ‘60s put an end to construction after only 1.2 miles and now the city is considering a plan to demolish the freeway.

Other public works, delayed for long periods, finally have moved ahead, among them:

Tellico Dam: This huge Tennessee Valley Authority dam was held up for more than two years because environmentalists contended that its construction would flood the only known habitat of the snail darter, a three-inch-long relative of the perch. But the dam finally was completed, the snail darter survived and, in 1983, was even removed from the federal endangered species list.

Tennessee-Tombigbee Waterway: This $2-billion, 234-mile canal, linking the Tennessee and Tombigbee rivers in northern Mississippi, shortens the cargo route from mid-America to the Gulf of Mexico by five days but took 12 years to build and almost did not survive a flurry of environmental lawsuits and rising congressional concern about its high cost.

Century Freeway: Running 17.3 miles, between Los Angeles International Airport and the San Gabriel River Freeway, in the city of Norwalk, the Century has been in the works, in one form or another, for more than 25 years. Enjoined by a federal court for seven years because of violations of environmental laws, the freeway now is being built under a court order that requires federal and state agencies to provide several thousand housing units and a light-rail line in the median, as well as the road.

Diablo Canyon: Strongly opposed by environmentalists and nuclear power opponents, and plagued by poor design and other problems, this $5.6-billion nuclear plant near San Luis Obispo finally began to produce electricity for customers of the Pacific Gas & Electric Co. last spring but is still not operating at full power.