Oregon: 9th Circuit Court nails Ochoco NF logging plan’s failure to study Cumulative effects

The U.S. Forest Service failed to adequately consider the cumulative
effects of past timber sales when it approved a logging project in the
Ochoco National Forest, the 9th Circuit ruled. The Deep Creek
Vegetation Management Project called for the selective logging of 12.8
million board feet of timber in the national forest which is near
Bend, Ore. League of Wilderness Defenders – Blue Mountains
Biodiversity Project and Cascadia Wildlands Project claimed the agency
violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the National Forest
Management Act by moving forward with the project without considering
the cumulative effects.

The Forest Service also failed to mark
large-diameter trees for protection or maintain connective habitat
corridors in the logging area, the lawsuit claimed. The district court
dismissed the case with prejudice, finding that the Forest Service
adequately included past timber sales in a different report. The
federal appeals court in San Francisco reversed, ruling that the
Forest Service’s almost complete failure to include the relevant past
timber-sale inputs in the final environmental impact statement fails
to survive arbitrary and capricious review. The appellate court said
the agency only included details of one past timber sale and merely
mentioned that other sales existed. The court remanded in order to
allow the agency to include the omitted information about timber
sales. However, the court held that the agency’s statement adequately
considers future timber sales, grazing and protection for
large-diameter trees.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2008/12/15/Court_Tells_Forest_Service_to_Review_Logging_Plan.htm

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