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This introductory chapter presents the specific aims of this book. It aims to provide a brief history of the conflict over the Westway project, highlighting key individual and organizational players, such as leading citizen opponent Marcy Benstock, who had become instrumental in Westway's defeat. Also relevant here are a number of other aspects of the conflict, as Westway was a multifaceted issue which gained, for various reasons, a sort of legendary status among legal and political commentators. The Introduction therefore addresses the necessity of dispelling the myths surrounding the Westway project, before focusing on Westway's legal and regulatory battles, especially the endgame litigation and political work from roughly 1982 to 1985.

This introductory chapter presents the specific aims of this book. It aims to provide a brief history of the conflict over the Westway project, highlighting key individual and organizational players, such as leading citizen opponent Marcy Benstock, who had become instrumental in Westway's defeat. Also relevant here are a number of other aspects of the conflict, as Westway was a multifaceted issue which gained, for various reasons, a sort of legendary status among legal and political commentators. The Introduction therefore addresses the necessity of dispelling the myths surrounding the Westway project, before focusing on Westway's legal and regulatory battles, especially the endgame litigation and political work from roughly 1982 to 1985.

This chapter details the attempts of the opposition to the Westway plans to discover whether the project would have a fatal legal vulnerability. Specifically, the chapter shows how both supporters and opponents alike turned their initial focus to Westway's impact on the environment, as air pollution links were the most obvious project risks. Any new highway in New York was bound to change traffic patterns and result in extra pollution in a city already suffering from serious air pollution problems. In addition, with the trade-in choice of highway or mass transit now explicitly recognized in federal law, advocates were able to in proceedings for air permits compare the more benign effects of mass transit expenditures and investment in Westway's highway. Furthermore, New York State and City had under the Clean Air Act committed to a State Implementation Plan (SIP) designed to bring New York into compliance with federal National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

This chapter focuses on another prominent issue in Westway's legal battles—water issues, primarily in relation to the Hudson River. The water battles consisted of concerns over aquatic habitat destruction and substantial threats to fishery, as the opposition questioned claims that Westway's aquatic impacts on the Hudson would be benign. Westway's supporters, in contrast, dismissed these environmental concerns as a make-weight issue. Incremental harms to the environment seemed invisible, or at least seemed dwarfed by more obvious, immediate, localized benefits. Regardless of partisans' motivations and views, federal law required close analysis of Westway's impact on fishery, especially in terms of harm to striped bass. These laws and linked impacts soon became the focus of regulatory and judicial controversy.

This concluding chapter considers the possibility of a similar project suffering the same fate as Westway in more contemporary times, analyzing more broadly the state of regulatory wars and what lessons Westway can offer regarding these. The chapter contends that while the context surrounding Westway's proposal and defeat no longer exists in current times, several elements illuminated by Westway's battles still remain. Westway's history provides insights into how such regulatory wars can be fought, but nothing in its tale confirms heroic expectations that citizens can alone always be there to protect the environment and check illegality. The chapter also provides further insights for future study.

This concluding chapter considers the possibility of a similar project suffering the same fate as Westway in more contemporary times, analyzing more broadly the state of regulatory wars and what lessons Westway can offer regarding these. The chapter contends that while the context surrounding Westway's proposal and defeat no longer exists in current times, several elements illuminated by Westway's battles still remain. Westway's history provides insights into how such regulatory wars can be fought, but nothing in its tale confirms heroic expectations that citizens can alone always be there to protect the environment and check illegality. The chapter also provides further insights for future study.

This chapter considers the aftermath of the trial examined in previous chapters by analyzing some legal close calls on Westway's side. Because the Army Corps had granted the Westway permit and the federal natural resource agencies had not played their objections up the executive branch hierarchy, the opponents still faced an uphill battle. Moreover, the norms of judicial deference were complicated here by numerous environmentally protective statutory and regulatory provisions that required worst-case assumptions, permit denials when faced with uncertainty, and prohibitions against avoidable or harmful fill in rivers like the Hudson. The chapter shows how the courts and the lawyers worked to sort out these issues.

This chapter details the attempts of the opposition to the Westway plans to discover whether the project would have a fatal legal vulnerability. Specifically, the chapter shows how both supporters and opponents alike turned their initial focus to Westway's impact on the environment, as air pollution links were the most obvious project risks. Any new highway in New York was bound to change traffic patterns and result in extra pollution in a city already suffering from serious air pollution problems. In addition, with the trade-in choice of highway or mass transit now explicitly recognized in federal law, advocates were able to in proceedings for air permits compare the more benign effects of mass transit expenditures and investment in Westway's highway. Furthermore, New York State and City had under the Clean Air Act committed to a State Implementation Plan (SIP) designed to bring New York into compliance with federal National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS).

This chapter focuses on another prominent issue in Westway's legal battles—water issues, primarily in relation to the Hudson River. The water battles consisted of concerns over aquatic habitat destruction and substantial threats to fishery, as the opposition questioned claims that Westway's aquatic impacts on the Hudson would be benign. Westway's supporters, in contrast, dismissed these environmental concerns as a make-weight issue. Incremental harms to the environment seemed invisible, or at least seemed dwarfed by more obvious, immediate, localized benefits. Regardless of partisans' motivations and views, federal law required close analysis of Westway's impact on fishery, especially in terms of harm to striped bass. These laws and linked impacts soon became the focus of regulatory and judicial controversy.

This chapter considers the aftermath of the trial examined in previous chapters by analyzing some legal close calls on Westway's side. Because the Army Corps had granted the Westway permit and the federal natural resource agencies had not played their objections up the executive branch hierarchy, the opponents still faced an uphill battle. Moreover, the norms of judicial deference were complicated here by numerous environmentally protective statutory and regulatory provisions that required worst-case assumptions, permit denials when faced with uncertainty, and prohibitions against avoidable or harmful fill in rivers like the Hudson. The chapter shows how the courts and the lawyers worked to sort out these issues.

New York Harbor has experienced profound physical alteration since the Colonial era. This includes dredged channels, filling of wetlands, creation of artificial islands, construction of piers and sea walls, and the blasting of reefs hazardous to navigation, such as in Hell Gate in the East River. The value of piers as habitat has remained contentious since the West Side Highway Study (Westway) in the early 1980s. A recent emphasis on habitat restoration is partly the product of cleaner water allowing the return of life.

This chapter maps out the origins of the Westway plan, by tracing the key events that led to its inception as well as initial reception to the project. The Westway plan was triggered on a local level by the crumbling infrastructure of the elevated West Side Highway (also known as the Miller Highway), which made a transportation fix inevitable. Planners and city officials quickly began to look at ways to link highway replacement with major development. The other key event in this story happened years earlier, when the federal government in the post-New Deal era became centrally involved in funding construction of interstate highways. The prospect of federal dollars that could underwrite substantial local patronage and fund urban improvements encouraged cities like New York to think big but at little local cost.

This chapter chronicles the first major rounds of the Westway war fought in the federal court, presided over by District Court judge Thomas Griesa, which resulted in a major victory for Westway's opponents. Alongside the more formal written regulatory position taking regarding Westway aquatic impacts, the chapter also looks into far more informal communications which continued among government regulators and between regulators and citizens. Opponents' focus on fishery impacts increased during early 1981 as a result of communication between the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Chuck Warren and Al Butzel, who was still serving as the attorney for Benstock's group and several other groups opposing Westway. The chapter hence shows how information about the internal government and the Westway project debates over striped bass risks emerged.

This chapter recounts the beginnings of another trial resulting from the EPA's failure to exercise its Section 404(c) veto power as well as a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) Draft which minimized Westway's harm on the striped bass. Despite the abundant data showing substantial usage of the proposed Westway site by young striped bass, often the highest percentages of all tested sites, the Final SEIS and permit decision dismissed such risks. In addition, adding pressure for both opponents and New York government leaders, any possible trade-in for Westway had to be completed by a statutory deadline of September 30, 1985. The courts and the United States Congress were therefore at that point the opponents' focus, as was the lack of explanation for the many Draft-to-Final SEIS changes regarding the impact on striped bass.

This chapter assesses Westway's defeat, starting with an examination of the consequences, then looking at the outcome both under the law and facts relevant to the Westway proposal and as a lens to critique the law's attributes in modern regulatory wars, especially over environmental stakes. While commentators included many who bemoaned Westway's defeat, others praised the result and the process that allowed citizens, politicians, and agency scientists to oppose and defeat a project supported by many powerful interests. Hence part of this clash of views hinged on whether Westway's defeat revealed legal or political dysfunction, even if it was a sound result under the law. Westway's lengthy war and defeat also offer lessons about the law, especially in complicated regulatory wars involving all branches and layers of government, citizen activists, and clashes over environmental risks and urban priorities.

This chapter recounts the beginnings of another trial resulting from the EPA's failure to exercise its Section 404(c) veto power as well as a Final Supplemental Environmental Impact Statement (SEIS) Draft which minimized Westway's harm on the striped bass. Despite the abundant data showing substantial usage of the proposed Westway site by young striped bass, often the highest percentages of all tested sites, the Final SEIS and permit decision dismissed such risks. In addition, adding pressure for both opponents and New York government leaders, any possible trade-in for Westway had to be completed by a statutory deadline of September 30, 1985. The courts and the United States Congress were therefore at that point the opponents' focus, as was the lack of explanation for the many Draft-to-Final SEIS changes regarding the impact on striped bass.

This chapter assesses Westway's defeat, starting with an examination of the consequences, then looking at the outcome both under the law and facts relevant to the Westway proposal and as a lens to critique the law's attributes in modern regulatory wars, especially over environmental stakes. While commentators included many who bemoaned Westway's defeat, others praised the result and the process that allowed citizens, politicians, and agency scientists to oppose and defeat a project supported by many powerful interests. Hence part of this clash of views hinged on whether Westway's defeat revealed legal or political dysfunction, even if it was a sound result under the law. Westway's lengthy war and defeat also offer lessons about the law, especially in complicated regulatory wars involving all branches and layers of government, citizen activists, and clashes over environmental risks and urban priorities.

This chapter maps out the origins of the Westway plan, by tracing the key events that led to its inception as well as initial reception to the project. The Westway plan was triggered on a local level by the crumbling infrastructure of the elevated West Side Highway (also known as the Miller Highway), which made a transportation fix inevitable. Planners and city officials quickly began to look at ways to link highway replacement with major development. The other key event in this story happened years earlier, when the federal government in the post-New Deal era became centrally involved in funding construction of interstate highways. The prospect of federal dollars that could underwrite substantial local patronage and fund urban improvements encouraged cities like New York to think big but at little local cost.

This chapter chronicles the first major rounds of the Westway war fought in the federal court, presided over by District Court judge Thomas Griesa, which resulted in a major victory for Westway's opponents. Alongside the more formal written regulatory position taking regarding Westway aquatic impacts, the chapter also looks into far more informal communications which continued among government regulators and between regulators and citizens. Opponents' focus on fishery impacts increased during early 1981 as a result of communication between the Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) Chuck Warren and Al Butzel, who was still serving as the attorney for Benstock's group and several other groups opposing Westway. The chapter hence shows how information about the internal government and the Westway project debates over striped bass risks emerged.