Federal judge sides with Washington State against illegal Growler fleet expansion
Federal judge sides with Washington State against illegal Growler fleet expansion.A federal judge sided with Washington State and other plaintiffs in Attorney General Bob Ferguson’s case against the Navy’s violations of NEPA when they expanded the Growler fleet illegally. One of our Olympic Forest Coalition board member’s NEPA and ESA documentation and analysis work was used in this case.The judge’s words included the following:
“…despite a gargantuan administrative record, covering nearly 200,000 pages of studies, reports, comments, and the like, the Navy selected methods of evaluating the data that supported its goal of increasing Growler operations. The Navy did this at the expense of the public and the environment, turning a blind eye to data that would not support this intended result. Or, to borrow the words of noted sports analyst Vin Scully, the Navy appears to have used certain statistics “much like a drunk uses a lamppost: for support, not illumination.”
This is breathtaking prose from a court. And it appears to force the revisiting of moving Growler operations back to El Centro, CA.
The Court recommends that the parties meet and produce a joint statement describing a remedy.