After more than a decade of litigation-intensive environmental controversies, environmental groups and their opponents have begun to look for alternative means of settling disputes. Formal litigation can be so burdensome and take so long to resolve that it may present one of the least efficient and least effective means of obtaining relief. Mediation, a technique that is in a relatively early stage of development in environmental disputes, is emerging as one promising method of conflict resolution. It recently scored its biggest triumph with the settlement of the long-standing dispute over energy and water resources on the Hudson River.

Fifteen years ago, environmental plaintiffs in the dispute charted new legal terrain by winning court acceptance of the notion that a conservation association had standing to challenge a hydroelectric facility license on aesthetic, conservation, and recreation grounds.¹ A final court resolution failed to emerge, however, and parties in the Storm King controversy have again broken new ground by abandoning the courts and settling their claims in the largest mediated settlement of an environmental dispute that has occurred to date. In what is being hailed by observes from all quarters as a milestone in the evolution of environmental law,² 11 parties representing conservation interests, utilities, and governmental agencies³ signed an agreement on December 19, 1980, that settled their demands and grievances. The agreement, which is incorporated into an Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) order, strikes a balance between cost-effective hydroelectric power generation on the Hudson River and protection of its fish and other aquatic resources. If the required consent from relevant federal and state regulatory agencies is forthcoming as expected,⁴ the agreement could take effect on or before May 15, 1981.