Bair v. California Department of Transportation

Background

Plaintiffs challenged the California Department of Transportation’s approval of a project to widen and improve a portion of Highway 101 through Richardson Grove State Park. The project was intended to allow longer trucks authorized under the Surface Transportation Assistance Act to pass each other safely. Plaintiffs included individual supporters and nonprofit environmental groups.

The challenge focused on Caltrans’s environmental assessments under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), Section 4(f) of the Department of Transportation Act, and the Wild and Scenic Rivers Act. Under NEPA, an agency generally must prepare a more detailed environmental impact statement if an environmental assessment shows that a project may significantly affect the environment. Caltrans instead issued a finding of no significant impact.

Earlier proceedings led to revisions of Caltrans’s environmental analysis. In 2019, this court granted plaintiffs summary judgment, required Caltrans to prepare an environmental impact statement, and enjoined the project from breaking ground until that statement was completed. In December 2020, however, the court of appeals reversed the summary judgment ruling and held that Caltrans’s analyses concerning the redwoods and traffic satisfied NEPA. The parties then filed renewed cross-motions for summary judgment concerning the claims remaining after the appeal.

NEPA claims

The district court held that the court of appeals’ decision foreclosed plaintiffs’ remaining NEPA claims. The appellate decision stated that Caltrans had adequately considered the project’s consequences and relevant factors and that its 2017 finding of no significant impact satisfied NEPA’s requirements. The district court stated that it was required to follow that ruling and could not reconsider those NEPA issues.

Section 4(f) claim

Section 4(f) protects publicly owned parks and certain other sites affected by transportation projects. It generally permits use of protected property only when there is no prudent and feasible alternative and the project includes all possible planning to minimize harm.

Plaintiffs argued that Caltrans could not use a streamlined “programmatic” Section 4(f) evaluation because California State Parks had not properly concurred with the evaluation. The court found that State Parks’s earlier letter, together with sworn declarations from Superintendent Victor Bjelajac, established the required concurrence. The declarations stated that State Parks’s concurrence continued to apply to the project as revised through 2021. The court also concluded that considering the declarations was necessary to resolve ambiguity in the administrative record and did not improperly create a new justification for Caltrans’s decision.

The court further held that Caltrans adequately considered alternatives. Those alternatives included controlling traffic in alternating directions, restricting truck travel at certain times, building a bypass, using State Route 299, and creating additional exceptions to the truck restrictions. The court accepted Caltrans’s conclusions that these options either failed to address the highway’s safety problems, created other safety concerns, required substantial detours, or would cost substantially more than the proposed project.

The court also found that Caltrans adequately considered mitigation measures. These included limiting noise, using noise barriers, using hand tools where possible, preserving larger tree roots, removing invasive species, monitoring the project with an arborist, and mulching disturbed areas. The court concluded that later revisions, new surveys, tree studies, public comments, and consultation with other agencies corrected earlier deficiencies sufficiently to satisfy Section 4(f).

Wild and Scenic Rivers Act claim

The court stated that plaintiffs had not addressed their Wild and Scenic Rivers Act claim in their renewed summary-judgment motion. It therefore found that plaintiffs had abandoned the claim and dismissed it.

Injunctive relief and disposition

The court held that plaintiffs could not obtain an injunction because all remaining claims had failed. It also noted that the court of appeals had reversed the earlier order enjoining the project. Judge Alsup granted summary judgment for Caltrans and the other defendants and against plaintiffs, and the court ordered that final judgment be entered for defendants.