## Facts

- Olympic National Park includes congressionally designated wilderness within which structures and motorized uses are tightly restricted by the Wilderness Act.
- During wilderness planning, NPS environmental review contemplated removing many backcountry shelters but retaining some for health and safety purposes, including the Home Sweet Home and Low Divide shelters.
- NPS later treated multiple shelters as historic properties for preservation purposes.
- The Home Sweet Home and Low Divide shelters collapsed due to weather, snow, and time.
- NPS decided to reconstruct replacement shelters off-site and transport them by helicopter into the wilderness for installation at the former shelter locations.
- NPS justified the project primarily on historic and experiential grounds (preserving the “historic feeling and appearance”) and also cited backcountry visitor health and safety.
- Plaintiffs (conservation and public-accountability organizations) sued under the Administrative Procedure Act, alleging the project violated the Wilderness Act and NEPA.
- The case was decided on cross-motions for summary judgment on the administrative record.

## Issues

1. Whether NPS’s decision to reconstruct and reinstall two collapsed shelters in designated wilderness using helicopter transport was permissible under the Wilderness Act’s limits on structures and motorized/mechanical intrusions and its narrow “minimum requirements” exceptions.
2. Whether NPS complied with NEPA by adequately analyzing environmental effects on wilderness character and considering reasonable alternatives, including non-reconstruction.

## Decision

- The court granted plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment and denied defendants’ cross-motion.
- The court held that NPS’s decision to rebuild the shelters off-site and replace them in wilderness by helicopter was inconsistent with the Wilderness Act.
- The court concluded NPS did not give controlling weight to wilderness preservation where historic-preservation goals conflicted with wilderness protections.
- The court also found NEPA deficiencies in the agency’s environmental review, including inadequate analysis of wilderness impacts and alternatives.

## Legal Principles

- In designated wilderness, agency actions must give predominant effect to the Wilderness Act’s mandate to preserve wilderness character; other statutory objectives may not be implemented in a way that overrides wilderness constraints.
- The Wilderness Act’s prohibitions on permanent installations and motorized/mechanical transport apply unless the agency shows an applicable, narrowly construed exception (including “minimum requirements” for administration of the area or emergencies).
- Historic-preservation authorities do not require or authorize reconstruction of structures in wilderness when reconstruction would conflict with the Wilderness Act; preservation duties must be carried out consistently with wilderness limits.
- Under NEPA, an agency must take a hard look at impacts on wilderness character and meaningfully evaluate reasonable alternatives, including options that avoid new structures or motorized intrusions in wilderness.

## Conclusion

The court set aside NPS’s plan to reconstruct two collapsed wilderness shelters using helicopter transport, concluding the agency unlawfully subordinated wilderness protection to historic-preservation objectives and failed to complete an adequate NEPA analysis of wilderness impacts and alternatives.


Olympic Park Assocs. v. Mainella, No. C04-5732FDB, 2005 WL 1871114 (W.D. Wash. Aug. 4, 2005)