Document ID: s3://data.kl3m.ai/documents/govinfo/USCOURTS/USCOURTS-ca9-19-35665/USCOURTS-ca9-19-35665-0/pdf.json

Parties Involved:
Bark
Appellant
Cascadia Wildlands
Appellant
High Cascade, Inc.
Appellee
Oregon Wild
Appellant
United States Forest Service
Appellee

Document Text:

FOR PUBLICATION

UNITED STATES COURT OF APPEALS

FOR THE NINTH CIRCUIT

BARK; CASCADIA WILDLANDS;

OREGON WILD,

Plaintiffs-Appellants,

v.

UNITED STATES FOREST SERVICE, a 

federal agency,

Defendant-Appellee,

HIGH CASCADE, INC.,

Intervenor-Defendant-Appellee.

No. 19-35665

D.C. No.

3:18-cv-01645-

MO

ORDER AND 

OPINION

Appeal from the United States District Court

for the District of Oregon

Michael W. Mosman, District Judge, Presiding

Argued and Submitted December 10, 2019

Seattle, Washington

Filed May 4, 2020

Before: Susan P. Graber, Marsha S. Berzon,

and Stephen A. Higginson,* Circuit Judges.

* Stephen A. Higginson, United States Circuit Judge for the U.S. 

Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, sitting by designation.

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2 BARK V. USFS

Order;

Opinion by Judge Higginson;

Concurrence by Judge Graber

SUMMARY**

Environmental Law

The panel granted appellants’ request to publish the 

unpublished Memorandum Disposition with modifications; 

and reversed the district court’s summary judgment in favor 

of the U.S. Forest Service in an action alleging violations of 

the National Environmental Policy Act and National Forest 

Management Act. 

The Crystal Clear Restoration (“CCR”) Project is a forest 

management effort and timber sale affecting 11,742 acres in 

Mt. Hood National Forest.

The panel held that the Forest Service’s determination 

that the CCR Project did not require an Environmental 

Impact Statement (“EIS”) was arbitrary and capricious for 

two independent reasons. First, the effects of the Project 

were highly controversial and uncertain, thus mandating the 

creation of an EIS. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4) & (5). 

Second, the Forest Service failed to identify and 

meaningfully analyze the cumulative impacts of the Project. 

** This summary constitutes no part of the opinion of the court. It 

has been prepared by court staff for the convenience of the reader.

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BARK V. USFS 3

Because an EIS was required, and because the findings 

in the EIS could prompt the Forest Service to change the 

scope of the Project or the methods it planned to use, the 

panel did not reach the appellants’ other claims. The panel 

remanded to the Forest Service for further proceedings.

Judge Graber concurred in full in the judgment and in all 

but section III-B of the majority opinion. She agrees that an 

EIS was required, but would not reach whether the 

environmental assessments’ discussion of cumulative 

impacts also was arbitrary and capricious.

COUNSEL

Brenna Bell (argued), Portland, Oregon; Nick Cady, Eugene, 

Oregon; for Plaintiffs-Appellants.

Jeffrey S. Beelaert (argued), Shaun M. Pettigrew, and 

Krystal-Rose Perez, Attorneys; Eric Grant, Deputy Assistant 

Attorney General; Jeffrey Bossert Clark, Assistant Attorney 

General; Environment and Natural Resources Division, 

United States Department of Justice, Washington, D.C.; 

Stephen A. Vaden, General Counsel; Val J. McLam Black, 

Senior Counsel, United States Department of Agriculture,

Washington, D.C.; for Defendant-Appellee.

Lawson E. Fite (argued), and Sara Ghafouri, American 

Forest Resource Council, Portland, Oregon, for IntervenorDefendant-Appellee.

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4 BARK V. USFS

ORDER

Appellants’ request to publish the unpublished 

Memorandum disposition, Docket No. 37, is GRANTED. 

The Memorandum disposition filed April 3, 2020, is 

redesignated as an authored Opinion by Judge Higginson, 

with modifications. The time for filing a petition for 

rehearing and petition for rehearing en banc shall start anew 

as of the filed date of this Opinion.

OPINION

HIGGINSON, Circuit Judge:

Appellants Bark, Cascadia Wildlands, and Oregon Wild 

timely appeal the district court’s summary judgment in favor 

of Appellees, the United States Forest Service (USFS) and 

High Cascade, for claimed violations of the National 

Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) and the National Forest 

Management Act (NFMA). We hold that the USFS’s 

determination that the Crystal Clear Restoration (CCR) 

Project did not require an Environmental Impact Statement 

(EIS) was arbitrary and capricious and so reverse. We do not 

reach the NFMA claims.

I.

The CCR Project is a forest management effort and 

timber sale affecting 11,742 acres in Mt. Hood National 

Forest. The Project area is partly a moist “transition” 

climate, and partly a dry “eastside” climate. According to the 

USFS, forest stands in the area tend to be overstocked as a 

result of past management practices. When trees are closer 

together, they are more susceptible to insects and disease and 

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BARK V. USFS 5

to high-intensity wildfires. The USFS undertook the CCR 

Project in order to “provide forest products from specific 

locations within the planning area where there is a need to 

improve stand conditions, reduce the risk of high-intensity 

wildfires, and promote safe fire suppression activities.” The 

USFS plans to achieve these goals in part using a technique 

called “variable density thinning.” This process gives the 

agency flexibility in choosing which trees to cut, thereby 

allowing the USFS to create variation within an area of forest 

so that the stands “mimic more natural structural stand 

diversity.” The USFS plans to leave an average canopy cover 

of 35–60%, with a minimum of 30% where the forest is more 

than 20 years old.

“NEPA imposes procedural requirements designed to 

force agencies to take a ‘hard look’ at environmental 

consequences” of their proposed actions. League of 

Wilderness Defs./Blue Mountains Biodiversity Project v. 

Connaughton, 752 F.3d 755, 763 (9th Cir. 2014) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). Agencies must prepare an EIS for 

federal actions that will “significantly affect[] the quality of 

the human environment.” 42 U.S.C. § 4332(2)(C). To 

determine whether a proposed action will have a significant 

effect on the quality of the human environment, agencies 

must prepare an Environmental Assessment (EA) that 

“[b]riefly provide[s] sufficient evidence and analysis for 

determining whether to prepare an environmental impact 

statement or a finding of no significant impact.” 40 C.F.R. 

§ 1508.9(a)(1). An EIS is required when this process raises 

“substantial questions” about whether an agency action will 

have a significant effect. Blue Mountains Biodiversity 

Project v. Blackwood, 161 F.3d 1208, 1212 (9th Cir. 1998); 

see also Native Ecosystems Council v. U.S. Forest Serv., 

428 F.3d 1233, 1238–39 (9th Cir. 2005). “If the agency 

concludes in the EA that there is no significant effect from 

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6 BARK V. USFS

the proposed project, the federal agency may issue a finding 

of no significant impact (‘FONSI’) in lieu of preparing an 

EIS.” Native Ecosystems Council, 428 F.3d at 1239 (citing 

40 C.F.R. § 1508.9(a)(1); id. § 1508.13).

After conducting an EA, the USFS determined that the 

CCR Project had no significant effects. It therefore issued a 

FONSI and did not prepare an EIS.

Appellants filed a complaint against the USFS bringing 

claims under NEPA and the NFMA. The NEPA claim 

alleged that the USFS did not undertake a proper analysis of 

the environmental impacts of the Project or of alternatives to 

the Project. The NFMA claim alleged that the USFS failed 

to comply with two forest plans and other guidance 

documents governing the Project area as required by the 

NFMA. The district court granted summary judgment to 

Appellees on all claims. Appellants timely appealed.

II.

We review the district court’s grant of summary 

judgment de novo. Ctr. for Biological Diversity v. Ilano, 928 

F.3d 774, 779 (9th Cir. 2019). The Administrative Procedure 

Act (APA), 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A), provides the governing 

standard for courts reviewing an agency’s compliance with 

NEPA and the NFMA. Native Ecosystems Council, 428 F.3d 

at 1238. Under the APA, we may overturn an agency’s 

conclusions when they are “arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of 

discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law.” 

5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A). “An agency action is arbitrary and 

capricious if the agency has: relied on factors which 

Congress has not intended it to consider, entirely failed to 

consider an important aspect of the problem, offered an 

explanation for its decision that runs counter to the evidence 

before the agency, or is so implausible that it could not be 

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BARK V. USFS 7

ascribed to a difference in view or the product of agency 

expertise.” WildEarth Guardians v. U.S. E.P.A., 759 F.3d 

1064, 1069–70 (9th Cir. 2014) (quoting Ctr. for Biological 

Diversity v. U.S. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 698 F.3d 1101, 

1109 (9th Cir. 2012)). An agency’s factual determinations 

“must be supported by substantial evidence.” Connaughton, 

752 F.3d at 759.

In reviewing an agency’s finding that a project has no 

significant effects, courts must determine whether the 

agency has met NEPA’s hard look requirement, “based [its 

decision] on a consideration of the relevant factors, and 

provided a convincing statement of reasons to explain why a 

project’s impacts are insignificant.” In Def. of Animals v. 

U.S. Dep’t of Interior, 751 F.3d 1054, 1068 (9th Cir. 2014) 

(alteration in original) (quoting Envtl. Prot. Info. Ctr. v. U.S. 

Forest Serv. (EPIC), 451 F.3d 1005, 1009 (9th Cir. 2006)). 

The term “significant” includes considerations of both the 

context and the intensity of the possible effects. 40 C.F.R. 

§ 1508.27. “Context simply delimits the scope of the 

agency’s action, including the interests affected.” In Def. of 

Animals, 751 F.3d at 1068 (quoting Nat’l Parks & 

Conservation Ass’n v. Babbitt, 241 F.3d 722, 731 (9th Cir. 

2001), abrogated in part on other grounds by Monsanto Co. 

v. Geertson Seed Farms, 561 U.S. 139, 157 (2010)). 

Consideration of context involves analysis “in several 

contexts such as society as a whole (human, national), the 

affected region, the affected interests, and the locality.” 

40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(a). “[I]n the case of a site-specific 

action, significance . . . usually depend[s] upon the effects in 

the locale rather than in the world as a whole.” Id.

Consideration of intensity “refers to the severity of 

impact.” Id. § 1508.27(b). NEPA regulations list ten nonexhaustive factors that inform an agency’s intensity 

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8 BARK V. USFS

determination, including “[t]he degree to which the effects 

on the quality of the human environment are likely to be 

highly controversial,” id. § 1508.27(b)(4), “[t]he degree to 

which the possible effects on the human environment are 

highly uncertain or involve unique or unknown risks,” id.

§ 1508.27(b)(5), and “[w]hether the action is related to other 

actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively 

significant impacts,” id. § 1508.27(b)(7). The regulations 

explain that “[s]ignificance exists if it is reasonable to 

anticipate a cumulatively significant impact on the 

environment,” and “cannot be avoided by . . . breaking [an 

action] down into small component parts.” Id. “When 

substantial questions are raised as to whether a proposed 

project ‘may cause significant degradation of some human 

environmental factor,’ an EIS is required.” In Def. of 

Animals, 751 F.3d at 1068.

III.

The USFS’s decision not to prepare an EIS was arbitrary 

and capricious for two independent reasons.

A.

First, the effects of the Project are highly controversial 

and uncertain, thus mandating the creation of an EIS. See

40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(4) & (5) (listing relevant factors for 

whether an EIS is required, including if the project’s effects 

are “highly controversial” and “highly uncertain”). The 

stated primary purpose of the CCR Project is to reduce the 

risk of wildfires and promote safe fire-suppression activities, 

but Appellants identify considerable scientific evidence 

showing that variable density thinning will not achieve this

purpose. Considering both context and intensity, as required 

by 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27, this evidence raises substantial 

questions about the Project’s environmental impact, and an 

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BARK V. USFS 9

EIS is required. See, e.g., Blackwood, 161 F.3d at 1212;

Native Ecosystems Council, 428 F.3d at 1238–39.

“A project is ‘highly controversial’ if there is a 

‘substantial dispute [about] the size, nature, or effect of the 

major Federal action rather than the existence of opposition 

to a use.’” Native Ecosystems Council, 428 F.3d at 1240 

(alteration in original) (quoting Blackwood, 161 F.3d 

at 1212). “A substantial dispute exists when evidence . . .

casts serious doubt upon the reasonableness of an agency’s 

conclusions.” In Def. of Animals, 751 F.3d at 1069 (quoting 

Babbitt, 241 F.3d at 736). “[M]ere opposition alone is 

insufficient to support a finding of controversy.” WildEarth 

Guardians v. Provencio, 923 F.3d 655, 673 (9th Cir. 2019).

The EA explained that the CCR Project will use 

“variable density thinning” to address wildfire concerns. “In 

variable density thinning, selected trees of all sizes . . .

would be removed.” This process would assertedly make the 

treated areas “more resilient to perturbations such as . . .

large-scale high-intensity fire occurrence because of the 

reductions in total stand density.” Variable density thinning 

will occur in the entire Project area.

Substantial expert opinion presented by the Appellants 

during the administrative process disputes the USFS’s 

conclusion that thinning is helpful for fire suppression and 

safety. For example, Oregon Wild pointed out in its EA 

comments that “[f]uel treatments have a modest effect on 

fire behavior, and could even make fire worse instead of 

better.” It averred that removing mature trees is especially 

likely to have a net negative effect on fire suppression. 

Importantly, the organization pointed to expert studies and 

research reviews that support this assertion.

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10 BARK V. USFS

Bark also raised this issue: “It is becoming more and 

more commonly accepted that reducing fuels does not 

consistently prevent large forest fires, and seldom 

significantly reduces the outcome of these large fires,” citing 

an article from Forest Ecology and Management. Bark also 

directed the USFS to a recent study published in The Open 

Forest Science Journal, which concluded that fuel 

treatments are unlikely to reduce fire severity and 

consequent impacts, because often the treated area is not 

affected by fire before the fuels return to normal levels. Bark 

further noted that, while “Bark discussed [during the scoping 

process] the studies that have found that fuel reduction may 

actually exacerbate fire severity in some cases as such 

projects leave behind combustible slash, open the forest 

canopy to create more ground-level biomass, and increase 

solar radiation which dries out the understory[,] [t]he EA did 

not discuss this information.”

Oregon Wild also pointed out in its EA comments that 

fuel reduction does not necessarily suppress fire. Indeed, it 

asserted that “[s]ome fuel can actually help reduce fire, such 

as deciduous hardwoods that act as heat sinks (under some 

conditions), and dense canopy fuels that keep the forest cool 

and moist and help suppress the growth of surface and ladder 

fuels . . . .” Oregon Wild cited more than ten expert sources 

supporting this view. Importantly, even the Fuels Specialist 

Report produced by the USFS itself noted that “reducing 

canopy cover can also have the effect of increasing [a fire’s 

rate of spread] by allowing solar radiation to dry surface 

fuels, allowing finer fuels to grow on . . . the forest floor, and 

reducing the impact of sheltering from wind the canopy 

provides.”

The effects analysis in the EA did not engage with the 

considerable contrary scientific and expert opinion; it 

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BARK V. USFS 11

instead drew general conclusions such as that “[t]here are no 

negative effects to fuels from the Proposed Action 

treatments.” Appellants thus have shown a substantial 

dispute about the effect of variable density thinning on fire 

suppression. Although it is not our role to assess the merits 

of whether variable density thinning is indeed effective in 

the project area to prevent fires, or to take sides in a battle of 

the experts, see Greenpeace Action v. Franklin, 14 F.3d 

1324, 1333 (9th Cir. 1992), NEPA requires agencies to 

consider all important aspects of a problem. See WildEarth 

Guardians, 759 F.3d at 1069–70. Throughout the USFS’s 

investigative process, Appellants pointed to numerous 

expert sources concluding that thinning activities do not 

improve fire outcomes. In its responses to these comments 

and in its finding of no significant impact, the USFS 

reiterated its conclusions about vegetation management but 

did not engage with the substantial body of research cited by 

Appellants. This dispute is of substantial consequence 

because variable density thinning is planned in the entire 

Project area, and fire management is a crucial issue that 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. See Ocean 

Advocates v. U.S. Army Corps of Eng’rs, 402 F.3d 846, 865 

(9th Cir. 2005) (“We have held that one of [the NEPA 

intensity] factors may be sufficient to require preparation of 

an EIS in appropriate circumstances.”). Thus, the USFS’s 

decision not to prepare an EIS was arbitrary and capricious. 

See Blackwood, 161 F.3d at 1213 (holding that conflicting 

evidence on the effects of ecological intervention in post-fire 

landscapes made a proposed project highly uncertain, thus 

requiring an EIS).

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12 BARK V. USFS

B.

The USFS also failed to identify and meaningfully 

analyze the cumulative impacts of the Project. “Cumulative 

impact is the impact on the environment which results from 

the incremental impact of the action when added to other 

past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions 

regardless of what agency . . . undertakes such other 

actions.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7. “Cumulative impacts can 

result from individually minor but collectively significant 

actions taking place over a period of time.” Id. “[I]n 

considering cumulative impact, an agency must provide 

‘some quantified or detailed information; . . . [g]eneral 

statements about possible effects and some risk do not 

constitute a hard look absent a justification regarding why 

more definitive information could not be provided.’” Ocean 

Advocates, 402 F.3d at 868 (alterations in original) (quoting 

Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain v. U.S. Forest Serv., 137 F.3d 

1372, 1379–80 (9th Cir. 1998)). “This cumulative analysis 

‘must be more than perfunctory; it must provide a useful 

analysis of the cumulative impacts of past, present, and 

future projects.’” Id. (quoting Kern v. U.S. Bureau of Land 

Mgmt., 284 F.3d 1062, 1075 (9th Cir. 2002)) (internal 

quotation marks omitted). We have held that cumulative 

impact analyses were insufficient when they “discusse[d] 

only the direct effects of the project at issue on [a small 

area]” and merely “contemplated” other projects but had “no 

quantified assessment” of their combined impacts. KlamathSiskiyou Wildlands Ctr. v. Bureau of Land Mgmt., 387 F.3d 

989, 994 (9th Cir. 2004).

The EA ostensibly analyzed the cumulative effects of the 

CCR Project, and included a table of other projects that were 

“considered in the cumulative effects analyses.” The 

cumulative impact analysis is insufficient because there is no 

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BARK V. USFS 13

meaningful analysis of any of the identified projects. The 

table gave no information about any of the projects listed; it 

merely named them. The section of the EA actually 

analyzing the cumulative effects on vegetation resources did 

not refer to any of these other projects. Nor are there any 

specific factual findings that would allow for informed 

decision-making. The EA simply concluded that “there are 

no direct or indirect effects that would cumulate from other 

projects due to the minimal amount of connectivity with past 

treatments” and that the Project “would have a beneficial 

effect on the stands by moving them toward a more resilient 

condition that would allow fire to play a vital role in 

maintaining stand health, composition and structure.” These 

are the kind of conclusory statements, based on “vague and 

uncertain analysis,” that are insufficient to satisfy NEPA’s 

requirements. Ocean Advocates, 402 F.3d at 869.

The EA also mentioned the possibility of cumulative 

effects in sections on other specific sub-topics such as fuels 

management, transportation resources, and soil productivity. 

These sections similarly relied on conclusory assertions that 

the Project has “no cumulative effects.” When the EA did 

acknowledge the possibility of the Project’s impact, such as 

in the section that analyzed the Project’s effects on spotted 

owls, it noted only that “[t]imber harvest on federal, tribal, 

and private land, and utility corridor operations have reduced 

the amount of suitable habitat . . . on the landscape and could 

continue to do so in the future,” without attempting to 

quantify the cumulative loss or naming other projects. Yet 

there were other relevant timber projects to discuss. 

Appellants pointed out at least three other recent or future 

timber projects in their comments responding to the EA, but 

the relevant section of the document limited its analysis to 

only the Project area and a 1.2-mile buffer surrounding it. 

Such a small buffer zone fails to distinguish the EA’s 

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14 BARK V. USFS

cumulative impact analysis from an analysis of the direct 

effects of the Project. See Klamath-Siskiyou Wildlands Ctr., 

387 F.3d. at 997 (assessing cumulative effects at the critical 

habitat unit scale). The USFS’s failure to engage with the 

other projects identified by Appellants leaves open the 

possibility that several small forest management actions will 

together result in a loss of suitable owl habitat. Preventing or 

adequately mitigating this potential loss is the fundamental 

purpose of NEPA’s requirement that agencies analyze 

cumulative impacts, and we have no basis in the record to 

assess whether the USFS has taken the necessary steps to 

consider this possibility.

Overall, there is nothing in the EA that could constitute 

“quantified or detailed information” about the cumulative 

effects of the Project. Ocean Advocates, 402 F.3d at 868 

(internal quotation marks omitted). The USFS’s analysis 

creates substantial questions about whether the action will 

have a cumulatively significant environmental impact. 

Therefore, this factor also requires the USFS to conduct an 

EIS. See 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7).

IV.

Because an EIS is required, and because the findings in 

the EIS could prompt the USFS to change the scope of the 

Project or the methods it plans to use, we do not reach the 

Appellants’ other claims. We reverse the district court’s 

judgment and remand to the district court with instructions 

to remand to the USFS for further proceedings consistent 

with this opinion.

REVERSED and REMANDED.

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BARK V. USFS 15

GRABER, Circuit Judge, concurring:

I concur in full in the judgment and in all but section IIIB of the majority opinion. The project’s proposed 

methodology of variable density thinning is both highly 

controversial and highly uncertain, so an environmental 

impact statement is required. I would not reach whether the 

environmental assessment’s discussion of cumulative 

impacts also was arbitrary and capricious.

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