Property Act and NEPA Violations

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7^th Circuit Court of Appeals

Case Name: Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance v. United States Department of the Interior, et al.

Case No.: 18-2213

Officials: RIPPLE, MANION, and SYKES, Circuit Judges.

Focus: Property Act and NEPA Violations

The National Park Service donated more than 3,000 acres in central Wisconsin to the state’s Department of Natural Resources. The goal was to turn the site of a Cold War munitions plant into a state park designed for a variety of recreational uses. That land now makes up the Sauk Prairie Recreation Area (“Sauk Prairie Park”). The Sauk Prairie Conservation Alliance (“the Alliance”), an environmentalist group, sued to halt three activities now permitted at the park: dog training for hunting, off-road motorcycle riding, and helicopter drills conducted by the Wisconsin National Guard. The defendants include the Department of the Interior, the National Park Service, and several federal officers. The State of Wisconsin intervened.

The Alliance invokes two federal statutes. The first is the Property and Administrative Services Act (“the Property Act”), which, among other things, controls the terms of deeds issued through the Federal Land to Parks Program, 40 U.S.C. § 550, the program that led to the creation of Sauk Prairie Park. The statute requires the federal government to enforce the terms of any deed it issues. And here, the relevant deeds provide that Wisconsin must use Sauk Prairie Park for its originally intended purposes. The Alliance argues that dog training and motorcycle riding are inconsistent with the park’s original purposes because neither was mentioned in Wisconsin’s initial application. So, the argument goes, the statute requires the National Park Service to enforce the deeds by taking action to end those uses. The Property Act also requires, with some important qualifications, that any land conveyed through the program must be conveyed for recreational purposes. The Alliance argues that this provision precludes military helicopter training.

The second statute at issue is the National Environmental Policy Act (“NEPA”), 42 U.S.C. §§ 4321 et seq. The Alliance claims that the federal defendants violated NEPA by failing to prepare an environmental-impact statement prior to approving these three uses. The district court entered summary judgment for the defendants on all claims, and we affirm. To start, the National Park Service’s approval of these three uses did not violate the Property Act. Dog training and off-road motorcycle riding were not explicitly mentioned in the State’s initial application, but both are recreational uses and therefore consistent with the original purposes of Sauk Prairie Park. And while military helicopter training is obviously not recreational, the National Park Service included a provision in the final deed explicitly reserving the right to continue the flights, and the Property Act authorizes reservations of this kind.

As for the NEPA claim, the Alliance failed to show that the National Park Service acted in an arbitrary and capricious manner. The agency reasonably concluded that its approval of both dog training and off-road motorcycle riding fell within a categorical exclusion to NEPA’s requirements—an exclusion for minor amendments to an existing plan. Helicopter training, on the other hand, likely doesn’t fall within that category. Still, the National Park Service was not required to prepare an environmental-impact statement for this use because the agency had no authority to discontinue the flights. Because the Park Service had no discretion, it was not required to prepare an environmental-impact statement.

Affirmed

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Derek A Hawkins is trademark corporate counsel for Harley-Davidson. Hawkins oversees the prosecution and maintenance of the Harley-Davidson’s international trademark portfolio in emerging markets.