Mount Hood Forest Thinning Project Needs Environmental Review

The U.S. Forest Service’s decision not to prepare an environmental impact statement for a tree-thinning project in Oregon’s Mount Hood National Forest was arbitrary and capricious, the Ninth Circuit ruled.

Because the effects of the Crystal Clear Restoration Project are “highly controversial” and “uncertain,” an EIS is necessary, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit said in an unpublished April 3 decision. The Forest Service also failed to consider the cumulative impacts of the project, it said.

The project proposes thinning 12,000 acres in the forest to reduce the risk of wildfires. But the Forest Service’s environmental assessment didn’t engage with considerable scientific and expert opinion presented by nonprofit group Bark and other groups challenging the plan that reducing fuel wouldn’t necessarily reduce the threat of fire. Instead, the assessment had general conclusions such as “there are no negative effects to fuels from the Proposed Action treatments.”

The court said the dispute is significant because forest thinning is planned for the whole project area, and fire management has “wide-ranging ecological impacts and affects human life.”

“When one factor alone raises ‘substantial questions’ about whether an agency action will have a significant environmental effect, an EIS is warranted,” the court said.

The environmental assessment also lacked detailed information about the cumulative impacts of the project, the court said.

The agency included a table in its assessment of other projects that were considered in its cumulative effects analysis, but there was “no meaningful analysis of any of the identified projects,” the court said. Though the agency did acknowledge the possibility that the CCR project could affect spotted owls, for instance, it failed to quantify the potential loss or name any other projects.

By failing to study the impacts of other projects presented by environmental groups, the Forest Service left open the possibility that small forest management actions will together reduce spotted owl habitat.

Judge Susan B. Graber concurred with the majority disposition, but said she wouldn’t reach whether the discussion of cumulative impacts was also arbitrary and capricious.

Judges Marsha S. Berzon and Stephen A. Higginson also served on the panel.

Bark said in an online statement April 4 that if the Forest Service had continued, it would “set a precedent that agencies can almost completely ignore community science and environmental regulations.”

The district court has been instructed to remand to the Forest Service for the preparation of an environmental impact statement.

Bark and Cascadia Wildlands Projects represented themselves and Oregon Wild.

The case is Bark v. U.S. Forest Serv., 9th Cir., No. 19-35665, unpublished 4/3/20.