Opinion ID: 1452488
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Forest Service's Compliance With Standard 10(b) Of The IPNF Forest Plan

Text: The NFMA requires the Forest Service to comply with its established forest plan in all subsequent actions. 16 U.S.C. § 1604(i); Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council, 88 F.3d at 757. Standard 10(b) of the IPNF Forest Plan requires the Forest Service to maintain at least ten percent old-growth throughout the forest. Lands Council argues both that the Forest Service will not meet Standard 10(b) after the Project's completion, and also that the IPNF is currently out of compliance with Standard 10(b). These arguments fail. The Forest Service has shown that it has complied with Standard 10(b), and Lands Council's contentions to the contrary are not supported by reliable evidence. The Forest Service presented two independent monitoring tools to determine the percentage of old-growth acres in the IPNF, each of which found that the forest contained approximately twelve percent old-growth. The first tool, the National Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program, provides a congressionally mandated, statistically-based, continuous inventory of the forest resources of the United States. The program's design and methods are scientifically designed, publicly disclosed, and repeatable.... There are also stringent quality control standards and procedures. Using the FIA data, the Forest Services concluded that 11.8 percent of the IPNF is old-growth. The second tool, the IPNF stand-level old-growth map, found a similar percentage using a method that was designed and implemented independently from the FIA inventory. This method utilizes stand information gathered by Forest Service personnel, which is inputted into the Timber Stand Management Record System (TSMRS) database. [12] Using this database, the Forest Service concluded that 12.1 percent of the IPNF is old-growth. Lands Council's argument that the Forest Service is not currently meeting Standard 10(b) is based on its own report. The report, Lost Forests, documented the results of a sampling, performed by Lands Council under the direction of a forest pathologist, of 3,000 acres that the Forest Service claimed to be old-growth. The report concluded that seventy percent of the surveyed area did not meet the Forest Service's own standards for old-growth. The Forest Service's expert, Dr. Arthur Zack, a forest ecologist, disagreed with the methodology and findings of the report. Dr. Zack found the report contradictory and unclear about what criteria [it] used for making old growth determinations. Dr. Zack called the report not credible because Lands Council used outdated versions of Forest Service databases and did not use a representative, non-biased sample design. When specialists express conflicting views, an agency must have discretion to rely on the reasonable opinions of its own qualified experts even if, as an original matter, a court might find contrary views more persuasive. Marsh, 490 U.S. at 378, 109 S.Ct. 1851. Thus, mindful of the Forest Service's discretion, we conclude that it did not act arbitrarily and capriciously in relying on its own data and discounting the alternative evidence offered by Lands Council. See Earth Island Inst. I, 351 F.3d at 1302. The Forest Service has also established that it will not harvest any old-growth trees as a part of the Project. Despite its plans to perform treatments within old-growth stands, the treatment will not involve harvesting allocated old-growth. The Forest Service represented in the SFEIS that the IPNF has not harvested allocated old-growth for several years, and that its focus is on maintaining [existing] old growth stands. In Lands Council I, we held that [b]ecause no old growth forest is to be harvested under the Project, ... it cannot be said that the Project itself violates the IPNF Plan's requirement to maintain ten percent of the forest acreage as old growth forest. 395 F.3d at 1036. Though we reach the same holding here, we acknowledge, as does the Forest Service, that old-growth percentages may decline due to disturbances such as fire, insects, [or] pathogens even if the Forest Service never authorizes harvesting of old-growth in the IPNF. Because the current old-growth exceeds ten percent, we need not discuss whether the Forest Service has an obligation to preserve mature, not-yet-old-growth trees in order to work toward the required amount of old-growth in the future. The district court did not abuse its discretion in concluding that Lands Council was not likely to succeed on the merits of this aspect of its NFMA claim.

NEPA, unlike the NFMA, does not impose any substantive requirements on federal agencies  it exists to ensure a process. Inland Empire Pub. Lands Council, 88 F.3d at 758. NEPA aims to make certain that the agency ... will have available, and will carefully consider, detailed information concerning significant environmental impacts, and that the relevant information will be made available to the larger [public] audience. Robertson v. Methow Valley Citizens Council, 490 U.S. 332, 349, 109 S.Ct. 1835, 104 L.Ed.2d 351 (1989); see also 40 C.F.R. § 1500.1(c) (The NEPA process is intended to help public officials make decisions that are based on understanding of environmental consequences, and take actions that protect, restore, and enhance the environment.). To that end, NEPA requires agencies to take a hard look at the environmental consequences of their actions by preparing an EIS for each major Federal action[] significantly affecting the quality of the human environment. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(C); Sierra Club v. Bosworth, 510 F.3d 1016, 1018 (9th Cir.2007). The EIS must provide [a] full and fair discussion of significant environmental impacts so as to inform decisionmakers and the public of the reasonable alternatives which would avoid or minimize adverse impacts or enhance the quality of the human environment. 40 C.F.R. § 1502.1. The EIS must include statements on: (i) the environmental impact of the proposed action, (ii) any adverse environmental effects which cannot be avoided should the proposal be implemented, (iii) alternatives to the proposed action, (iv) the relationship between local short-term uses of man's environment and the maintenance and enhancement of long-term productivity, and (v) any irreversible and irretrievable commitments of resources which would be involved in the proposed action should it be implemented. 42 U.S.C. § 4332(C). We hold that when the Forest Service provides a full and fair discussion of environmental impacts and its EIS includes these necessary components, the Forest Service has taken the requisite hard look. We have previously faulted the Forest Service for not addressing uncertainties relating to a project in any meaningful way in an EIS. See Seattle Audubon Soc'y v. Espy, 998 F.2d 699, 704 (9th Cir. 1993) (The EIS did not address in any meaningful way the various uncertainties surrounding the scientific evidence upon which the ISC rested.); see also Ecology Ctr., 430 F.3d at 1065 (stating that the EIS did not address in any meaningful way uncertainties regarding the proposed treatment). But none of NEPA's statutory provisions or regulations requires the Forest Service to affirmatively present every uncertainty in its EIS. Thus, we hold that to the extent our case law suggests that a NEPA violation occurs every time the Forest Service does not affirmatively address an uncertainty in the EIS, we have erred. See Espy, 998 F.2d at 704; see also Ecology Ctr., 430 F.3d at 1065. After all, to require the Forest Service to affirmatively present every uncertainty in its EIS would be an onerous requirement, given that experts in every scientific field routinely disagree; such a requirement might inadvertently prevent the Forest Service from acting due to the burden it would impose. We reaffirm, however, that the Forest Service must acknowledge and respond to comments by outside parties that raise significant scientific uncertainties and reasonably support that such uncertainties exist. This requirement comports with NEPA's regulations, as well as with interpretations of NEPA offered by the Supreme Court and other circuits. See, e.g., 40 C.F.R. § 1500.1(b) (providing that the agency must insure that environmental information is available to public officials and citizens and this information must be of high quality as [a]ccurate scientific analysis, expert agency comments, and public scrutiny are essential to implementing NEPA); id. § 1502.9(a) (requiring that the agency make every effort to disclose and discuss at appropriate points in the [EIS] all major points of view on the environmental impacts of the alternatives including the proposed action); id. § 1503.4(a) (stating that [a]n agency preparing a final environmental impact statement shall assess and consider comments both individually and collectively, and shall respond ... in the final statement); id. § 1502.22 (providing that [w]hen an agency is evaluating reasonably foreseeable significant adverse effects on the human environment in an environmental impact statement and there is incomplete or unavailable information, the agency shall always make clear that such information is lacking); Izaak Walton League of Am. v. Marsh, 655 F.2d 346, 377 (D.C.Cir.1981) (holding that  [s]o long as the environmental impact statement identifies areas of uncertainty, the agency has fulfilled its mission under NEPA) (emphasis added). The Forest Service does not, however, have the burden to anticipate questions that are not necessary to its analysis, or to respond to uncertainties that are not reasonably supported by any scientific authority.