Tellico Dam Project (Snail Darters) and Supreme Court Case (TVA v. Hill, 1977)

Introduction

In the mid-1970s, a well-publicized legal battle pitted environmental groups and an endangered species of fish against a $100 million federal construction project. The Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) was constructing Tellico Dam on the Little Tennessee River when a new freshwater fish species, the snail darter, was discovered upstream. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service listed the snail darter as an endangered species under the Endangered Species Act of 1973.

Numerous individuals and environmental groups filed suit to stop construction of the Tellico Dam, arguing that damming the Little Tennessee River would destroy the snail darter’s natural habitat. The court case, Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, went to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court decided to uphold the mandate of the Endangered Species Act to protect the snail darter and its habitat. After further political maneuvering, however, the Tellico Dam was completed, and the snail darter’s natural habitat was destroyed.

Historical Background and Scientific Foundations

In 1972, U.S. President Richard M. Nixon (1913–1994) called on Congress to enact comprehensive legislation to protect endangered species. Congress responded and passed the Endangered Species Act of 1973 (ESA). The ESA provides “a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved,… ‘and provides’ a program for the conservation of such endangered species and threatened species.”

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (FWS) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) administer the ESA. NOAA, through the National Marine Fisheries Service, manages all endangered and threatened marine species. The FWS manages all other endangered or threatened species, including all freshwater species.

Under the ESA, plant and animal species may be classified as endangered or threatened. The ESA defines an endangered species as being in “danger of extinction throughout all or a significant portion of its range.” A threatened species is any species “likely to become an endangered species within the foreseeable future throughout all or a significant portion of its range.”

A species may be listed as endangered or threatened in one of two ways. First, the FWS or NOAA may decide to list a species directly. Second, any individual or organization may petition the FWS or NOAA to conduct a scientific review of any species threatened or endangered. The FWS or NOAA then determines whether to list the species. Once FWS or NOAA lists an endangered or threatened species, they are to identify the critical habitat of the species. All federal agencies are then required to work with FWS or NOAA to ensure that the critical habitat of that species is not destroyed or modified.

Section 11 of the ESA contains a citizen suit clause that allows any citizen to sue “to enjoin any person, including the United States and any other governmental instrumentality or agency… who is alleged to be in violation of any provision of this Act.” In 1976, Hank Hill, a student at the University of Tennessee, and others filed suit in federal court seeking an injunction to stop the construction of a dam that would destroy the habitat of the snail darter.

The snail darter is a small fish, about 2 in (10 cm) in length that was discovered in the Little Tennessee River in 1973. In 1975, the FWS listed the snail darter as an endangered species under the ESA. When the snail darter was listed on the endangered species list, the secretary of the U.S. Department of the Interior, which oversees the FWS, stated that the snail darter resided only in a small portion of the Little Tennessee River. Furthermore, the secretary stated that the construction of the nearby Tellico Dam would destroy the critical habitat of the snail darter. The secretary then stated that “all Federal agencies must take such action as is necessary to insure that actions authorized, funded, or carried out by them do not result in the destruction or modification of this critical habitat area.”

The secretary’s findings troubled the Tennessee Valley Authority, the agency responsible for the construction of Tellico Dam. The TVA began the Tellico Dam project in 1967. Many homes and farms were relocated because Tellico Reservoir would flood 16,500 acres of land. The snail darter had not been discovered when the Tellico Dam project began. Tellico Dam was 70% to 80% complete (a cost of tens of millions of dollars) by the time the snail darter was listed as an endangered species.

In the lawsuit to enjoin the Tellico Dam project, now called Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill, the TVA argued that the ESA’s protection of endangered species and their critical habitats did not extend to government projects that were authorized, funded, and underway at the time Congress passed the ESA. Essentially, the TVA argued that Congress did not intend for the ESA to interfere with projects that Congress had approved. The TVA also pointed to the fact that in 1975 Congress appropriated an additional $29 million for the Tellico Dam project after the TVA informed Congress that the project could threaten the snail darter.

In May 1976, the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Tennessee denied relief for the snail darter advocates and dismissed their complaint. The court determined that the completion of Tellico Dam would probably jeopardize the continued existence of the snail darter. The court concluded, however, that “at some point in time, a federal project becomes so near completion and so incapable of modification that a court of equity should not apply a statute enacted long after inception of the project to produce an unreasonable result.”

In January 1977, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Sixth Circuit reversed the lower courts decision. The Court of Appeals remanded, or sent back, the case to the lower court “with instructions that a permanent injunction issue halt[ed] all activities incident to the Tellico Project which may destroy or modify the critical habitat of the snail darter.” The Court of Appeals directed that the injunction “remain in effect until Congress, by appropriate legislation, exempts Tellico from compliance with the Act or the snail darter has been deleted from the list of endangered species or its critical habitat materially redefined.” The Court of Appeals noted that the near completion of the Tellico Dam project and congressional appropriation of money to the project were irrelevant.

WORDS TO KNOW

ECOSYSTEM: The community of individuals and the physical components of the environment in a certain area.

EXTINCT: No longer in existence. In geology, it can be used to mean a process or structure that is permanently inactive (e.g., an extinct volcano).

HABITAT: The natural location of an organism or a population.

THREATENED: When a species is pressured, but technically not yet endangered.

The only relevant legal consideration for the court was the language of the ESA, “the meaning and spirit” of which was “clear on its face.”

The TVA appealed the Court of Appeals ruling to the Supreme Court of the United States. The Supreme Court issued its opinion in June 1978, affirming the ruling of the Court of Appeals. The Supreme Court found that the ESA prohibited the construction of Tellico Dam, because the project would threaten the snail darter and its critical habitat. The court noted that the language of the ESA is plain and does not make any exception for projects underway at the time Congress passed the ESA. If Congress had intended to exempt such projects from the requirements of the ESA, they could have simply added language to that effect to the ESA. The court refused to read exemption into the ESA in the absence of such language.

The court also noted that the “plain intent of Congress in enacting this statute was to halt and reverse the trend toward species extinction, whatever the cost.” If Congress wanted to exempt Tellico Dam or other projects from the requirements of the ESA, then Congress would have to do so clearly and unequivocally. The court stated that continued congressional appropriation for the Tellico Dam project and a few comments by congressional representatives on the Appropriations Committee were not enough to repeal or modify existing law.

Issues and Impacts

One month after the Supreme Court decided Hill, Congress amended the ESA to include a process by which economic impacts could be reviewed by the Endangered Species Committee. The committee had the power to exempt projects from ESA restrictions. Congressional representatives sought an exemption for the Tellico Dam project through the Endangered Species Committee. After weighing the scientific and economic evidence, the Endangered Species Committee denied an exemption for Tellico Dam in early 1979.

In September 1979, Congress passed an amendment that exempted the Tellico Dam project from the Endangered Species Act. The TVA closed the gates of Tellico Dam in November 1979, flooding the native habitat of the snail darter. In an effort to save the snail darter, the TVA had relocated many snail darters to the nearby Hiwassee River prior to damming the Little Tennessee River. Scientists also discovered snail darters in other areas of the Tennessee River Valley watershed after the completion of Tellico Dam. In 1984, the Fish and Wildlife Service delisted the Tellico Dam area as a critical habitat for the snail darter because the species died off in that area. Because of the newly discovered snail darter populations, the FWS changed the classification of the snail darter from endangered to threatened in 1985.

The snail darter case changed the face of environmental law in the United States, especially in regard to the Endangered Species Act. The decision of the Supreme Court demonstrated the importance of the ESA and other environmental laws. The court rejected the view that environmental laws should be enforced only when convenient. The court sided with the ESA over a $100 million federal project. Despite this victory in court, however, the snail darter case illustrated the political nature of environmental law when Congress voted to exempt the Tellico Dam project from the ESA.

See Also Endangered Species; Environmental Protection Agency (EPA); Extinction and Extirpation

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Web sites

Chattanooga Times Free Press. “Knoxville: Little Fish, Big Fight.” April 19, 2008. http://www.timesfreepress.com/news/2008/apr/19/knoxville-little-fish-big-fight/ (accessed May 2, 2008).

Findlaw. “Tennessee Valley Authority v. Hill.” http://caselaw.lp.findlaw.com/scripts/getcase.pl?court=US&invol=437&invol=153 (accessed May 2, 2008).

Forest History Society. “1979: Snail Darter Exemption Case.” November 1, 2004. http://www.foresthistory.org/research/usfscoll/policy/northern_spotted_owl/1979owl.snaildarter.html (accessed May 2, 2008).

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). “Summary of the Endangered Species Act.” March 6, 2008. http://www.epa.gov/regulations/laws/esa.html (accessed May 2, 2008).

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. “Endangered Species Act of 1973.” http://www.fws.gov/endangered/esa/content.html (accessed May 2, 2008).

Joseph P. Hyder