Oregon Logging Project Approval Appears Likely to Be Upheld (1)

The Bureau of Land Management’s environmental review of a 2,500-acre logging project on the Oregon Coast met a friendly appeals court panel that seemed poised to defer to the agency’s scientific assessment of risks to endangered birds.

During oral arguments Tuesday the US Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit appeared unlikely to reverse a lower court’s ruling that the Big Weekly Elk Project doesn’t violate the the agency’s Northwestern and Coastal Oregon Resource Management Plan’s provisions that protect nesting habitats.

Environmental groups Cascadia Wildlands and Oregon Wild argued BLM applied an overly restrictive definition of habitat modification to include ...