Opinion ID: 174457
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: ONDA's Survey

Text: Because the BLM had not responded to its wilderness concerns, ONDA decided to undertake a survey of land with wilderness characteristics outside of the WSAs, documenting changes that had occurred since November 1980, when the BLM completed the inventory supporting its 1991 preservation recommendations. See OR. NATURAL DESERT ASS'N, WILDERNESS INVENTORY RECOMMENDATIONS: VALE DISTRICT (ONDA Survey) (2004). In doing so, ONDA relied upon wilderness inventory procedures described in the BLM's guidance documents. ONDA Survey at i-ii; see also BUREAU OF LAND MGMT., U.S. DEP'T OF THE INTERIOR, BLM WILDERNESS INVENTORY AND STUDY PROCEDURES, H-6310-1 (2001 Handbook) 5-16 (2001) (rescinded 2003) (providing the procedures used by ONDA). The wilderness characteristics ONDA reviewed were those described in the Wilderness Act and incorporated into the FLPMA. In February 2004, ONDA submitted the results of its survey to the BLM. Because the survey was submitted well after the ROD was issued, it is not part of the administrative record. However, in NEPA cases, the court may extend its review beyond the administrative record and permit the introduction of new evidence where the plaintiff alleges that an EIS has . . . swept stubborn problems or serious criticism under the rug. Or. Natural Res. Council v. Lowe, 109 F.3d 521, 526-27 (9th Cir.1997) (internal quotation marks and alteration omitted). The survey was admitted in the district court on that ground, and the BLM does not appeal that ruling. We describe the survey here without expressly approving or disapproving its particular empirical findings. Instead, we discuss it to demonstrate how the presence of wilderness values may change over time, and how wilderness characteristics may have been reestablished in parts of the area covered by the Southeast Oregon Plan. ONDA explained that there had been significant changes since the BLM's last inventory. Lands the BLM had previously determined lacked wilderness characteristics had reverted to a more natural state and, ONDA maintained, now did have such characteristics. Many of these changes occurred, ONDA reported, because little-used roads had deteriorated since November 1980. Because 16 U.S.C. § 1131(c)(1) defines wilderness as an area which generally appears to have been affected primarily by the forces of nature, the BLM has long treated the presence of roads as cancelling out any other wilderness characteristics an area might otherwise have, as they defeat the natural conditions wilderness characteristic. See 43 U.S.C. § 1782(a) (providing that the § 1782 review should focus on roadless areas); BUREAU OF LAND MGMT., U.S. DEP'T OF THE INTERIOR, WILDERNESS INVENTORY HANDBOOK (1978 Handbook) 6 (1978) (discussing roadlessness); see also 16 U.S.C. § 1131(c) (defining wilderness characteristics). In determining whether an area may be subject to further consideration of wilderness characteristics, BLM has distinguished roads that had been actively maintained from ways that were maintained solely by the passage of vehicles. The presence of ways did not render an area `roaded' so as to eliminate that area from further evaluation as wilderness. Colo. Envtl. Coalition, 161 I.B.L.A. 386, 391 (2004) (citation and footnote omitted). See also 2001 Handbook at 10; 1978 Handbook at 5. ONDA concluded that many roads had become ways over the years, and that other human impacts had also been reduced. For instance, ONDA represented that in the 62,479 acre Battle Mountain area, roads had decayed to become nearly invisible overgrown way[s]. ONDA Survey at 1-3. In the 11,433 acre Beaver Dam Creek area, in ONDA's view, a former road was rutted and washed out in places. Id. at 13. Roads that had precluded consideration of the 45,760 acre Black Canyon area had, according to ONDA, deteriorated so much that they were almost nonexistent. Id. at 29. In the 32,148 acre Clark's Butte area, ONDA reported that a road was now an overgrown, washed-out way with little sign of use, id. at 65, and what had once been small reservoirs had dried up and vanished, id. at 66. And the Lower Owyhee Canyon, an 11,578 acre area that the BLM had deemed to be without wilderness characteristics in 1980 because of non-native grass seeding, had, as described in the survey, returned to largely native vegetation. Id. at 180. In short, ONDA presented the landscape as having changed significantly. In all, the ONDA study concluded that there are now more than 1.3 million acres of land in the planning area outside the WSAs that display wilderness characteristics. Id. at i. The BLM did not, however, alter the Plan or otherwise take action on ONDA's new information.