is that the maintenance and restoration of soil productivity raised by the report was a major issue addressed throughout the environmental assessment the supreme court in  compaction and soil productivity which is what it is required to do the forest service took a hard look at not harvesting the timber as advocated by bashed through a no action alternative in the second the forest service considered a restoration only alternative which is well leave the trees there on cut but we would like to just plant trees underneath the dead trees now the forest service didn't fully develop the restoration only alternative based on the agency's first hand experience on the fire prone and fourth rock ranger district they learned that the dead over story trees eventually fall to increase the fire hazard and risk that so productivity was addressed over ten to twenty tons of organic matter will be retained on the site it iyar eighty the tree tops will be retained in the areas where the fire burned to  allow organic matter to replenish the soil soil compassion was addressed in the way they were maps of the soil types and they divided the soil types in the four categories based on their while monitoring has shown that the majority of detrimental swell the students occurring in the burned areas a purse during the salvage operation which is what best use the point was rather than during the burn itself now they're going to one of the center for biological diversity versus the forest service on the other friends of yosemite valley versus norton and i should just kind of preview up front that it seems to me that those cases you know bashed i had some concerns of what what fire salvage would do now he didn't make the comments like the center for biological diversity where the arizona fish had made the comments but you can view these comments i think in in the context of the nepa law either one of two ways first you can review you can view it as a responsible opposing diversity project involving the tower fire salvage of the discord decided as an issue of the degree over whether the effects are going to be highly controversial and i'd like to go down both those that involved an environmental impact statement this involves in the section fifteen zero two point nine about discussing responsible opposing views case where there was a three thousand page administrative record and they were trying to find you know where that was here we believe it was there now on the second  twenty seven four where they discussed the ten factors of significance and the degree to which the effects on the environment are likely to be highly controversial and here we believe that's in a flexible in the district court  because the forest service agreed with batch to that there would be detrimental soil disturbance in this case in the form of soil compaction and it's one of degree of course i think if you know that's to say as if you're going to log on very steep slopes right near the streams above threaten endangered fish like they were doing in blue mountain biodiversity that's very significant in this case if you're in an area where you're a mile and a half from water there is no threatening danger species there's no right period bar because there's no water there there's no soil the getting into the water the compaction is the issue in the forest service looked at mitigating nath through the use of skin trails and through the use of seasonal restrictions on logging case and the court here apparently was concerned that the best to report represented something regarding the degree to which the possible effects on the environment are highly uncertain or area in the forest service already you know addressed generally the issue of compassion in the forest plan e i a s and adopted nature is you'll you'll see in the excerpts of record for dealing with compassion in the way in the measure that the forest plan recommended and which was terror to the forest plan excuse me was that they would would use some of these measures to restrict the logging case where it says you know you you don't know exactly you disclose what the effects are going to be you're not exactly sure what might happen but you're going to use monitoring as a tool this court's and the district courts of the circuit there are very explicit interpretations of what the national policy act requires for the agency to do in terms of environmental analysis and addressing scientific controversy thing that appears in any way and it says that it refers to of hennig's g as public scoping and so one who would want to think about what happened in the public stopping process would go to dry and bold letters if you're interested in understanding the scientific conference appendix g which is attached you wouldn't have the start i think we still would have this argument because this court's holding a center for biological diversity as well as the black which case page ninety four refers to an appendix g that doesn't seem to be the same appendix g that once you get to that appendix those two documents don't seem to be the same thing and we have several examples for why that is an appendix g is found at york city fifteen so if you want to take a look at that  undated altogether which again if we're talking about whether or not the public had access to this information during the public comment process when the stock it was available in prepared is a major issue in this case and  about an area that is pretty dry and we're not talking about spotted owls we're not talking about aquatic concerns like we were in the black white case what we're talking about here is a little compaction issues and so that is separate than the scientific controversy surrounding the best to report because in doing any a the forest service has an obligation to demonstrate that the impacts do not rise to the level of significance that requiring i a s and they can do that by imposing medication measures that are applicable to the project  issue as well as effective and will be implemented so then the question is did the forest service in this case proposed medication measures that are adequate for the project issue and it is  say if they would have done something to incorporate appropriately into the law the best the report that had done the analysis then we would be discussing whether they did the analysis correct and significance and were going environmental effects that would add to the fact that the agency didn't disclose and analyzed special report and other scientific evidence against any kind before and it's always that breakpoint because we find that we have to send it back  mitigation measures you also have a situation where the medication measures have not been assessed in terms of their effect of his and whether or not they're actually applicable to the situation we have here talked about sub soil aine it's unclear whether or not subsequently is sufficient for salvage sales we're talking about an environment that is much different than in un burned green live source we're talking about a fire that has had in some cases some pretty devastating effects on the land balances requiring e p a but soon to be talking about working on the prophylactic area where you didn't put this on and the only exception would be argued maybe as well no harm no foul because it's their right and the parallel work but they all discussed it so we're in that area now are we right because i think i think councils issue their position is that it's ok we've got this appendix has talked about it and anyway we have these medication measures that are sufficient to address the soil concerns identified in the basher report i think it your position might be you know let's you clarify which are that whenever you attach one of these scientific controversy or reports you can't to disclose the controversy state you know there's this they'd have about their about plus five salvage logging we understand that here's why we think it's not applicable to this particular project either we've proposed a bunch of medication measures that are applicable to the correct you might not ultimately for a while but correct and that's and that's that again all need requires a particular process and that's what plaintiffs raised have always raised is that we may lose in the end but the point here i want to make sure that i get all of my issues regarding the appendix i think in some of the briefing dear johnson argued that the appendix was accessible to the public during the comic the decision came out and this final code that's in the upper left hand corner it references thirty six c f r to fifteen point six dini and as a regulatory section that deals with how the agency documents its response to comment that very process issue that neither requires disclosure analysis that we don't think was present in the environmental assessment and again this isn't a situation with the battle of the experts type of situation we're not even we're definitely not to that stage all we're to the stage and requirements are the same for any and any i asked so i don't really think that's an issue here second i'd also like to remind the court it was president our briefing for sure that the forest service failed to comply with meet this requirement to assess the direct and then finally because a police have raised questions about the environmental effects of the proposed actions we do believe that law requires that any i should have been prepared in this case thank you your honor i think we are it step two i think we can elevate form over substance here we need to look at the e a a as a whole including its appendix and can't just put a blinder on and not consider that in ultimately requires is the question does the eating itself analyze the significance of the environmental effects here you'd almost feel like nobody mentioned besht until afterwards and then it came up in the no i'm not what ford goes through this project these concerns on this topic in this forest somehow you have to meet that becomes a scientific controversy