New York 72
" Though the Corps's scientists
.on OR THE BATTLE OF WESTWAY 103
OUTBOARU.
vnlain that they had been using the word "significant" only in the tried to expia
sense of "statistically" significant, meaning it was "measurable" if
r>t in the broader, layman's sense, the judge remained unconvinced; minor, noi
he smelled a coverup.
Це was particularly incensed by the testimony of one government wit ss William Dovel, who had developed the Corps's theory that the juvenile bass used the interpier area only briefly in the course of migrations out of and back into the river. Finding Dovel's wobbliness on the witness stand "bizarre," Griesa let him have it: "Dovel's testimony is a collection of assertions so irresponsible that it is shocking that the Government ever tendered him as a witness." Part of what made Dovel unreliable in the judge's eyes was that he seemed to have changed his mind regarding where the juvenile bass were overwintering, and acknowledged that his ideas were only "tentative hypotheses." But it did not help Dovel's credibility that he too had been caught in a conflict of interests: he had gone to Laurance Rockefeller's office, requesting funding for the preparation of a report on striped bass. "Dovel said that it could be most beneficial for Westway and that Westway could use it,'" Griesa summarized witheringly.
Against this background, A1 Butzel, counsel for the Sierra Club, was able to raise a suspicion of selfinterest and prodevelopment advocacy on the part of Westway's scientific hired consultants.
In this Davidversus Goliath case, pitting feisty citizens' groups against state and corporate power, the antiWestway witnesses were then seen as disinterested public servants. Judge Griesa had high praise for Frank DeLuise of the Fish and Wildlife Service and Michael Ludwig of the National Marine Fisheries Service: "There is no question about the honesty of these witnesses and the high degree of expertise they possess. Their knowledge of the relevant subjectmatter is indeed profound."
The lawsuit has become the great equalizing tool for environmentalist causes. "Only in a courtroom," said Victor Yannacone, attorney for the Environmental Defense Fund, "can a scientist present his evidence, free from harassment by politicians. And only in a courtroom can bureaucratic hogwash be tested in the crucible of crossexamination." In this case, howler, the courtroom process seems to have exaggerated the gap between e reliability of pro and antiWestway scientists. Shades of opinion, contradiction fueled by selfdoubt, and principled uncertainty came out looking like "bureaucratic hogwash" and hypocrisy.
I spoke to Dennis Suszkowski, who had been a geologist at the Arrny Corps of Engineers for thirteen years, and who helped prepare the Corps's Westway case. Suszkowski is a thoughtful, undogmatic man who now works for the Hudson River Foundation, an environmental group focusing on research. The picture he presents of the Corps is not nearly as monolithic as Judge Griesa assumed.