flocking project in eastern washington and the northern blue mountains said poses to large over fifty percent of all the logging that occurred in the last sixty five years in the entire human till the national forest voice to yes the issues are whether the forest service violated the national environmental policy act the national forest management act record closing this one thousand acre logging project the issue the legal issue for the court is one of consistency with past precedent this court has ruled in a number of cases that the forest service must disclose the impacts of significant impacts on specific roadless areas whether they're unrelated of twelve thousand acres the other one that west to canada is just under five thousand acres it's roughly about forty four forty two hundred acres so it's under five thousand acres i'm sorry let me ask you this is the argument  years and that's why they need to a number of recommendations with two key ones that are before the courts today one is the president preservation of old large trees and the second is no good no construction of roads whether they're called temporary asked to use they're not unique character of those who value judgments i learned as an excellent question i'm not here to make value judgments i mean just where this came from this from the fish and wildlife service and from the national marine fisheries service and i'll just quote really  on the guidance from the scientific community let me turn really briefly to the side of argument regarding the life of trees in the preliminary injunction appeal that we made an emergency appeal one of the members of th that's pretty activity you know what that's not kill us makes us stronger is something that we use but the same does apply generally to trees and as i want to just point to one scientist that submitted evidence make them healthier large pines that survive fires can take advantage of substantial nutrient process and are free from competition from smaller neighboring trees i have been working with plaintiffs in eastern oregon and washington for some time to try to get the forest service to stop its new position which is that they can log what it falls by trees and that is if some new category i found that new category no where in the amendment number two to the side screen is going to be and locates these two areas it's a little difficult because since they aren't officially inventory roadless areas it's his plaintiffs themselves to draw on their own boundaries and call this the upper cummings creek roadless area that's that's a very good education that's not in the physical designation it's just part of the general forest area that's analyzed in the us because of the plaintiffs did raise this issue in response to the draft and they said what about these areas in the in response to that the final yes that's ok we have considered the fact that these areas while they're not inventory boatless they are largely undeveloped and so there will be some visual impacts to those  your opportunities for solitude in those areas will be affected while lumbering is going on but at the same time there's very little road work it's temporary those roads will be decommissioned afterwards and it makes clear that what's going on the salvage harvest and the temporary roads will not affect the possibility that later on some time when the four services reconsidering the whole wilderness issue these  issue of law it presents an issue of applying well established law to set of facts and because of that i think on a preliminary injunction appeal this court needs to go a lot of discretion and is likely to be within that two or three years is not considered a live tree by forrester's and that is shown by the way this has been consistently applied by the forest service the very a year this came out there was a directive from the the chief forester who from whom this has come saying that which made clear that dead or dying trees do not have to be preserved and judge king had the full record before him of how the forest service had applied this standard he changed his mind because he said i now see that the forresters interpret life perhaps differently other plants in the inner core columbia basin area that could could be amended but i think again but if you look at the purpose of this the purpose is to promote all growth and treaties which are not going to at the plan it's not a regulation it's not a statute and that this court needs to interpret the plane and in the context of the plan and it can't just merely say we're going to look at the language on ignored the proper of the plan for a long time so to say it's like you know i always go sixty five in a fifty five miles home so why do you read fifty five not to mean sixty five so i guess i'm not really sure why fact the record shows in this case your honor not that scuse me for just a second well it seems to me that the practice has been to include dying trees among those that are harvested but i don't actually understand it to the issue of a live tree and dine in a certain period of time that's that's the issue it's a temple or somewhere on the table says in the little plastic that i got it on display until february fifteenth in the context of tr do is they're looking at the crown they're looking at the bowl and they're trying to assess the roots by looking chopping into the bottom of the tree and all dr royce plaintiffs expert in this case said on the  record it to a two and two thirty two that trees was predicted survival rates of less than twenty five percent are highly likely to die making them potentially appropriate for harvest and the studies that the forest service referred to in that mr royce referred to which are included in the yes but none of that says they're not online yes they do say they're not alive and the issue in what they say and what the professional judgment issue is here how do you make that determination and that determination is in the important in the plan in the context of the plan because they're not going to come back in here for twenty or thirty years and so they're going to go through wants and they're trying to make an assessment that are clearly a live that maybe did and thirty years isn't what the forest service is is trying to assess they're trying to assess the trees that are not expected to die faced on a probability it is not a black and white question in the context of forestry life it is not a black and white question it is in the plan the forest service has been monitoring the implementation of the plan and the question comes up time and time again from the managers should we sa snag or should we cut it or should we do something else for it in the issue becomes is that treaty debt now and how do you make that determination for example the research from eighty six through two thousand talks about her definition of mortality in fire damage ponderosa pine predicting post fire mortality of step seven western conifers that's the ryan and reinhart paper that mr royce plaintiff's attorney or plaint understand these complicated terms and they have continued that throughout time and we would argue that as judge king did when he looked at this more thoroughly and he looked at all these one nine hundred ninety eight field reviews panel i just want to emphasize that the recommendation from the bipartisan panel that was in panel by congress to look at the depletion of old growth forest the impacts to grow the serious east of the cascade crest actually recommended the preservation of all trees live for dad twenty inches or greater but then that was changed by the forest service to only apply to live trees i've been practicing in this area the last for about six years now and about a couple years ago clients came to me and said you know whistleblower can reinstate their logging a lot of live trees that we do not think are time the forest service went into court and said these trees are dying your honor i trust me they're done four years survive fire i have learned through this work that this is where the concept for the tiles on a space shuttle came from in other words they absorb massive amounts of heat and the interior of the trees survives the crown can be scorched up to twenty e large trees have exhibit the genetic characteristics of survival survive the full range of variation present in eastern oregon washington in other words high severity fire ground and