Opinion ID: 153019
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Clearly results in greater assurance of long term maintenance of habitat

Text: The first requirement under the NWFP Standards and Guidelines is that a proposed stand management project within a LSR, such as the Five Buttes Project at issue here, clearly result in greater assurance of long-term maintenance of habitat. NWFP S & Gs at C-13. Here, although the Forest Service acknowledges the negative effects associated with logging 618 acres of protected old-growth forest in northern spotted owl territory, the Forest Service summarily concluded that any loss is clearly outweighed by the benefit from reduced fire risk. There are two problems with this conclusion. First, the Forest Service never explains its assumed risk of fire; nor, as the majority itself notes, is the Forest Service consistent as to what the actual risk would be of another Davis-type fire in the Deschutes National Forest. Second, the agency focuses almost entirely on one lone variable to measure stand management successfire risk reduction. As Plaintiffs argued, [r]educing risk of habitat loss from wildfire or other natural disturbances ... is not an objective in itself. Plaintiffs's Reply Br. at 32. By assessing benefits without considering the potential costs, the Forest Service fail[s] to consider an important aspect of the problem and impermissibly skews the comparison of management alternatives in favor of logging. McNair, 537 F.3d at 987. The Forest Service recognizes that the Five Buttes Project will have potential long-term negative effects. The first such effect identified in the Record of Decision is that: The sivicultural and fuels treatments [i.e. logging] proposed would reduce stem density, overall canopy cover, and may reduce the amount of down wood that provides prey base habitat. These activities may reduce the quality, effectiveness, and the distribution of habitat available to the northern spotted owl in the planning area for the short- and long-term as well as directly, indirectly and/or cumulatively. Consequences of active management may have a negative impact on the northern spotted owl and its ability to establish and maintain breeding territories, find sufficient prey base habitat, and disperse across the landscape. Five Buttes Record of Decision at 12. The Forest Service also recognizes that following completion of the Five Buttes Project and its related logging activities, the Davis LSR will take up to fifty years to return to previous conditions. Five Buttes Project Environmental Impact Statement, Appendix D at 391. Furthermore, during those years, the Davis LSR will be converted to foraging or dispersal habitat and will no longer be suitable for nesting and roosting by the spotted owl. [3] Id. The majority points out that the Five Buttes Project is structured so that no spotted owl will be directly harmed. This is small consolation given that we have long recognized that the continued existence of an endangered or threatened species, like the spotted owl, requires not just protection from direct harm but also protection of habitat. 16 U.S.C. § 1536(a)(2); see Gifford Pinchot Task Force v. U.S. Fish & Wildlife Serv., 378 F.3d 1059, 1063 (9th Cir.2004). The Forest Service justifies these short and long-term harms because the proposed management plan, according to a burn probability mapping computer simulation, would reduce the risk of another large crown fire occurring in the Davis LSR by 40 percent over the no action alternative. The Forest Service, however, never explains the basis for its assigned current risk of fire. The Forest Service characterizes that risk as moderate to high, but never offers a meaningful rational for that assessment, explanation for how it arrived at that level of fire risk, or, most importantly, some explanation for what it actually means to conclude that the risk of a fire is moderate to high. Without any indication of how likely a fire is when the risk level is moderate to high, it is not possible, for example, to tell whether another Davis-type fire in the next decade on the Davis LSR is imminent, likely, or merely possible. A moderate to high risk may coincide with a 70 percent chance of a large-scale fire in the next decade. Or, a moderate to high risk may mean there is a mere 10 percent chance of another large-scale fire in the next decade. Without such an actual assessment, the Forest Service cannot weigh the Five Buttes Project's costs and benefits as required by the NWFP. The Forest Service selected Alternative C for its relative risk reduction. A calculation of relative risk reduction is sufficient to compare the three treatments against one another and to assess their relative worth as to fire reduction. Of the three treatments considered, Alternative C promises the greatest relative reduction in the risk of fire. Therefore, if the Forest Service were only considering fire reduction, C would be the clear winner. Fire risk reduction, however, is not the only variable at play. The cost of the proposed project is 20-50 years during which 618 acres of NRF spotted owl habitat will be downgraded to only foraging habitat. The Forest Service must weigh the benefit of a 40 percent reduction in the risk of fire against the definite cost of the Five Buttes Project. Without some indication of what the actual risk of a fire is, that is, how likely a fire currently is, the value of any relative reduction in that risk is meaningless, and the true benefit of Alternative C remains unknown and, therefore, impossible to weigh against the known cost. [4] In sum, the value of a 40 percent reduction in fire risk is meaningless without some studied consideration and quantifiable assessment of the current risk of a fire. Put simply, the benefit of the Five Buttes Project and its associated 40 percent reduction in fire risk will be greater if the current risk of a fire is 70 percent and it will be less if the current risk is 10 percent. That difference matters because the value of that benefit must still be weighed against the costs of the project. The Forest Service fails to offer any assessment in concrete terms of the current fire risk, and, therefore, the Forest Service fails to weigh the relative costs and benefits of the Five Buttes Project as required by the NWFP. Despite the fact that the Forest Service never conducted a meaningful assessment of actual fire risk, the Forest Service in the final EIS asserts that there is a risk of another large-scale fire. The Forest Service, however, is inconsistent in its characterization of that risk. The EIS characterizes the risk of a Problem Fire similar to the Davis Fire as moderate to high. Later, the EIS characterizes the risk of more large-scale loss of large trees and late-structure forest[due to fire] as extremely high. [5] The majority accepts these two characterizations as consistent. In my view, there is a difference between a moderate to high and an extremely high risk. Furthermore, that difference matters. If the risk of a fire is only moderate, then it is unlikely that the Forest Service could justify destroying 618 acres of existing old-growth forests to prevent the merely moderate threat. This is particularly true since forests east of the Cascades have a natural fire cycle and are, by the NWFP's own Standards and Guidelines, to be retained in their natural condition with natural processes, such as fire, allowed to function to the extent possible. NWFP S & Gs at B-4. Even if we assume the worst case scenario and that the risk of another fire like the Davis Fire is extremely high, the Forest Service has an obligation to explain and weigh that risk against the proposed alternativecertain destruction. While it may be generally accepted that wildfire is a common occurrence in eastern Oregon, as discussed above, no numerical measure is given in the record of the frequency of fire in the Deschutes National Forest. To pick Alternative C because it is 40 percent less likely to result in a crown fire when there is a fire without a determination that includes the actual number of ignitions per year in the forest or some actual evaluation of the risk of fire unjustifiably weighs fire prevention above-and-beyond all other factors. The NWFP's Standards and Guidelines specifically require a greater assurance of long-term maintenance. NWFP S & Gs at C-13. Greater is a relative term that requires comparison. Without quantifying actual risk a comparison is not possible. The Forest Service's conflicting statements of fire risk, in my view, are arbitrary, and its failure to comply with the NWFP Standards and Guidelines' requirement that it compare costs and benefits is capricious. The majority states that Plaintiffs misstate the issue when they identify the Five Buttes Project's associated harms. The majority suggests that the issue is, rather, not how long the harms will last, but whether the benefits outweigh the costs in the long-term. The problem is that the Forest Service has not sufficiently assessed the benefits to determine whether they outweigh the known costs. Not only is the record lacking any indication of what the actual reduction in fire risk will be in concrete terms, there is also no assessment nor consideration of how long the treatment under Alternative C will continue to reduce the risk of fire. If, following that treatment, fire risk conditions are predicted to return to their current levels in 20 years, then the cost of losing protected NRF habitat for 20-50 years would hardly be worth the 20 year benefit. No such analysis is found in the record, and for this reason as well, the Forest Service failed to weigh the costs and benefits and assure greater long-term maintenance of the Davis LSR. Second, the Forest Service's assessment of successful management is skewed by its focus on one lone variablereduction in fire risk. Normally we refrain from reviewing an agency's scientific methodology and defer to the agency's expertise. See McNair, 537 F.3d at 993. Basic flaws in reasoning and faulty science warrant no such deference. See Earth Island Institute v. Hogarth, 494 F.3d 757, 763-64 (9th Cir.2007). The Forest Service for purposes of the Five Buttes Project not only assumes an unexplained and inconsistent risk of fire, it also looks at only one variable as its measure of successful management. The problem with this sort of science is that it can lead, and does so here, to a nonsensical result. Namely, the Forest Service can justify commercially logging 618 acres of spotted owl habitat in the Davis LSR for the stated purpose of preserving the forest. To illustrate, consider the following example. Assume that the Forest Service considered a fourth alternative, Alternative D, and that Alternative D called for bulldozing all 618 acres of the affected LSR old growth. Surely clear cutting the forestso there are no trees whatsoeveris unlikely to clearly result[] in greater assurance of long term maintenance of habitat. Clear cutting, however, would leave no trees, and so the likelihood that a fire would either start or spread would be drastically reduced. In fact, there would be zero risk of a crown fire. Therefore, despite the fact that the area would no longer be viable for nesting or roosting, of the alternatives presented and using the Forest Services' parameters to measure successi.e., the greatest success tied to the greatest reduction in risk of firewe get the nonsensical result that bulldozing the Davis LSR would be the optimal management plan because it would assure maximum reduction in the risk of a fire. [6] The Forest Service does suggest and offer for comparison three alternatives (A, B, and C). All three, however, are considered primarily for their relative ability to reduce the risk of fire. These options not only assume a fire, they assume that the paramount benefit is the reduced risk of fire. Framing the issue this way ignores all of the other important purposes that LSRs serve. As noted above, the reserves provide habitat for populations of species that are associated with late-successional forests and they help ensure that latesuccessional species diversity will be preserved. LSRs also affect the regional climate, air, and migratory fish runs. In short, the Forest Service conflates reducing the risk of fire and long-term maintenance of habitat. While it is true that a fire would destroy the habitat, it is equally true that logging inside a LSR destroys it. These harms are never balanced, and so the greater effectiveness of the proposed action remains an illusive goal. Finally, the Forest Service fails to fully consider important alternatives. The three alternatives (A, B, and C) are not compared with either a decision not to log in the Davis LSR or to thin only small trees. The majority claims that Alternative A  is the no logging alternative. Majority Op. at 1132 n. 6. The majority, however, confuses a decision not to log in the Davis LSR with Alternative A, a decision not to log at all. The Five Buttes Project covers 160,000 acres and, as the majority notes, authorizes management treatments, including commercial logging, across approximately 5,522 acres, and commercial logging in 618 acres of NRF habitat in the Davis LSR. Id. at 1126. A decision not to log in the Davis LSR would affect a small fraction of the current Five Buttes Project, namely the acres to be logged in the Davis LSR. Alternative A, on the other hand, would affect all 160,000 acres of the Five Buttes Project area and would stop commercial logging on the 618 acres in the Davis LSR and the 5,522 acres outside the LSR. Alternative A, not to log at all, is distinct from a decision not to log within the Davis LSR. The Forest Service discounts the option to either (1) not log in the Davis LSR or (2) to thin only small trees because, the Forest Services concludes, these two options would not change fire behavior and would not reduce the spread of fire. Here, the Forest Service focuses on the likelihood, under these two conditions, that a fire will turn into a specific type of fire, namely a crown fire. The Forest Service does not report, however, what the reduction in the likelihood of fire would be under either of these scenarios. While a treatment of ladder fuels may not prevent crown fires, it may substantially reduce fire ignitions, perhaps even below the levels of Alternative C, while simultaneously permitting the 618 acres of the Davis LSR to continue to serve as NRF habitat. Without an analysis of the reduction in fire riskthe variable the agency has put above all othersand a consideration of actual risk, the Forest Service has not fully considered and compared of the benefits and costs of either not logging in the Davis LSR or logging only smaller stands. The majority states that the Forest Service's decision to cut large trees was clearly necessary based on the Forest Service's assertion that commercial thinning is a hedge against epidemic loss of the larger trees to insect and disease. Aside from this bald statement, the Forest Service offers no study or observational findings or even causal explanation to support its conclusion that fewer large trees decreases the likelihood of bug infestation or kill. In sum, the Forest Service's failure to consider the complex variables involved in forest management and its fixation on reduced risk of fire results in an unconsidered analysis that fails to meet the requirements of the NWFP. Because the Forest Service did not look to quantifiable variables nor make a reasonable prediction of actual current risk of a fire, it entirely failed to consider an important aspect of the problem and, therefore, acted arbitrarily and capriciously in finding that the Five Buttes Project would clearly result in greater assurance of long term maintenance or habitat. McNair, 537 F.3d at 987.