Opinion ID: 221481
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The NFMA Claims

Text: SJCA argues that the Federal Defendants' approval of the ROD violated the NFMA because the Project is inconsistent with a number of the Forest Plan's standards and guidelines that protect and conserve the Forest's old-growth ponderosa pines, wildlife habitat, and riparian areas. We address these contentions in turn.
SJCA contends that the Project is inconsistent with a Forest Plan requirement that [i]n forested areas of a unit, Aplts. App., Vol. I at 233  in this case all national forest lands within the Project area,  5 percent or more should be in old-growth. Id. SJCA notes that [t]he EIS estimated that old growth currently represents only 3.8 percent of the ponderosa pines on national forest lands in the Project area, Aplt. Br. at 17, and contends that [t]he Project exacerbates this violation by allowing destruction of still more old growth for well pads and roads, id. It finds support for its claim in the EIS's allegedly dispositive admission that the fully developed Project would impact old-growth ponderosa pine in the Project Area and that `[t]hese reductions in the old growth stage would move the Project Area further away from the' five percent standard. Id. (quoting Aplts. App., Vol. I at 280). SJCA asserts that approval of the Project was therefore unlawful, and that the Federal Defendants should have amended the Forest Plan or modified the Project to avoid violating it. The Federal Defendants disagree with SJCA's characterization of the Forest Plan's old-growth standard as mandatory. They assert that the 5% standard is merely aspirational, not a binding requirement, and thus the Project may proceed even though there is less than five percent old growth timber in the Project Area. Fed. Defs. Br. at 19. And in any event, they and the Lessees argue, we need not reach the merits of that dispute because SJCA's old-growth claim is premature. They contend that until the Federal Defendants grant site-specific authorization for a well pad whose construction would affect areas of old growth, SJCA's old-growth challenge is not ripe for adjudication. We agree. The ripeness doctrine is drawn both from Article III limitations on judicial power and from prudential reasons for refusing to exercise jurisdiction. Reno v. Catholic Soc. Servs., Inc., 509 U.S. 43, 57 n. 18, 113 S.Ct. 2485, 125 L.Ed.2d 38 (1993). It serves to prevent the courts, through avoidance of premature adjudication, from entangling themselves in abstract disagreements over administrative policies, and ... to protect the agencies from judicial interference until an administrative decision has been formalized and its effects felt in a concrete way by the challenging parties. Abbott Labs. v. Gardner, 387 U.S. 136, 148-49, 87 S.Ct. 1507, 18 L.Ed.2d 681 (1967). To determine whether an issue is ripe for judicial review, we must examine both the fitness of the issues for judicial decision and the hardship to the parties of withholding court consideration. Ohio Forestry Ass'n v. Sierra Club, 523 U.S. 726, 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665, 140 L.Ed.2d 921 (1998) (internal quotation marks omitted). [T]he burden is on the [party challenging an agency action] to provide evidence establishing that the issue[] [is] ripe for review. Park Lake Res. LLC v. U.S. Dep't of Agric., 197 F.3d 448, 450 (10th Cir.1999). The Supreme Court's opinion in Ohio Forestry helps demonstrate why SJCA must wait to challenge the Project's consistency with the Forest Plan's old-growth standard. In that case the Forest Service had adopted a forest plan which specified those parts of the Wayne National Forest suitable for logging, set logging goals and limits, and determined which methods of harvesting timber would be appropriate. See Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 729, 118 S.Ct. 1665. The Sierra Club challenged the plan on the grounds that it permitted excessive logging and clearcutting, see id. at 728, 118 S.Ct. 1665, but Ohio Forestry argued that the case was nonjusticiable because the controversy was not ripe. See id. at 732, 118 S.Ct. 1665. To determine ripeness the Court considered: (1) whether delayed review would cause hardship to the plaintiffs; (2) whether judicial intervention would inappropriately interfere with further administrative action; and (3) whether the courts would benefit from further factual development of the issues presented. Id. at 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665. A unanimous Court ruled that all three factors argued against ripeness. See id. To begin with, although the plan's promulgation... ma[de] logging more likely in that it is a logging precondition [and] in its absence logging could not take place, id. at 730, 118 S.Ct. 1665, no cognizable harm flowed immediately from adoption of the plan. The plan did not command anyone to do anything or to refrain from doing anything; [it did] not grant, withhold, or modify any formal legal license, power, or authority; [it did] not subject anyone to any civil or criminal liability; [and it] create[d] no legal rights or obligations, such as giv[ing] anyone a legal right to cut trees. Id. at 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665. Before tree harvesting could commence, the Forest Service had to take additional site-specific actions: proposing a specific area for logging and a specific harvesting technique, providing notice and an opportunity for comments, conducting an environmental analysis under NEPA, and making a final decision that could be challenged through administrative appeals and the courts. See id. at 729-30, 118 S.Ct. 1665. Thus, the Sierra Club would have ample opportunity ... to bring its legal challenge at a time when harm is more imminent and more certain. Id. at 734, 118 S.Ct. 1665. And such a challenge could include a challenge to the lawfulness of the [forest plan] if (but only if) the [plan] then matter[ed], i.e., if [it] play[ed] a causal role with respect to the future, then-imminent harm from logging.  Id. (emphasis added). Although the Sierra Club said that it would be easier, and certainly cheaper, to mount one legal challenge against the Plan now, than to pursue many challenges to each site-specific logging decision to which the Plan might eventually lead, the Court responded that it would expect preclusion principles to enable the Sierra Club effectively to carry the day based on one initial site-specific victory (if based on the Plan's unlawfulness), and in any event, the Court has not considered this kind of litigation cost saving sufficient by itself to justify review in a case that would otherwise be unripe. Id. at 734-35, 118 S.Ct. 1665. Regarding the second factor, the Court said that immediate judicial review directed at the lawfulness of logging and clearcutting could hinder [the Forest Service's] efforts to refine its policies. Id. at 735, 118 S.Ct. 1665. For example, it could revise the plan before implementation in response to an appropriate proposed site-specific action that [would otherwise be] inconsistent with the Plan. Id. Or it could adjust site-specific application of the plan to avoid potential inconsistencies. See id. And finally, the Court reasoned that further factual development of the Sierra Club's claim would be beneficial to the courts. To resolve the challenge on the present record, the Court would have to engage in time-consuming ... consideration of the details of an elaborate, technically based plan ... without benefit of the focus that a particular logging proposal could provide. Id. at 736, 118 S.Ct. 1665. Also, review could ultimately prove unnecessary if, as the Court had previously noted, the Forest Service chose to revise the Plan or modify the expected methods of implementation. Id. A Ninth Circuit opinion nicely illustrates when a challenge to a forest plan is ripe for review. In Wilderness Society v. Thomas, 188 F.3d 1130 (9th Cir.1999), the Wilderness Society contended that the Forest Service had violated the NFMA by approving a forest plan for the Prescott National Forest that identified acreage capable of being used for commercial livestock grazing without conducting a proper analysis of whether the lands were suitable for that purpose. See id. at 1132-35. In addition, the Wilderness Society alleged that the Forest Service had unlawfully issued grazing permits for two allotments without conducting an analysis of grazing suitability. See id. at 1133. Following Ohio Forestry, the court ruled that the general challenge to the sufficiency of the forest plan was not ripe. See id. at 1134. The site-specific claims, however, were justiciable. And because the Wilderness Society alleged that the site-specific injury to the two allotments [was] caused by a defect in the Forest Plan, the court could consider whether the Forest Service complied with the [NFMA] in making its general grazing suitability determinations in the Forest Plan. Id; see Wilderness Soc'y v. Alcock, 83 F.3d 386, 390-91 (11th Cir. 1996) (claim that forest plan violated the NFMA was not ripe until Forest Service issued a site-specific decision that was made possible by the alleged defect in forest plan); cf. Sierra Club v. Robertson, 28 F.3d 753, 758-59 (8th Cir.1994) (Sierra Club did not have standing to challenge Ouachita National Forest Plan because it had not suffered the necessary injury-in-fact; adoption of the plan, a general planning tool that did not effectuate any on-the-ground environmental changes, did not produce an imminent injury; it could, however, challenge a site-specific action and assert that the proposed site-specific action is not consistent with the Plan, or that the Plan as it relates to the proposed site-specific action is inconsistent with the governing statutes, or both.); San Juan Citizens Alliance v. Norton, 586 F.Supp.2d 1270, 1295 (D.N.M.2008) (plaintiff's programmatic challenge was not ripe for review because the resource management plan did not authorize any specific ground-level disturbances and all decisions concerning future, site-specific actions such as approval of an application for a permit to drill [would be] subject to administrative approval, and [would] include a detailed NEPA analysis of the likely environmental impacts of the proposed action); Bosworth, 284 F.Supp.2d at 90-93 (plaintiff's challenge to issuance of an oil-and-gas lease was not ripe for review because actual development rested upon uncertain future events, including the lessees' submission of APDs and agency approval of SUPOs). Applying this law to SJCA's claim that approval of the Project violated the Forest Plan's 5% old-growth standard, it is clear that the claim is not ripe. The Project approval does not cause the loss of a single old-growth ponderosa pine. To borrow the Supreme Court's parlance, it does not command anyone to do anything or to refrain from doing anything; [it] do[es] not grant, withhold or modify any formal legal license, power, or authority; ... [it] create[s] no legal rights or obligations. Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 733, 118 S.Ct. 1665. No construction or drilling will take place, and no potential injury can occur, until the Forest Service approves site-specific SUPOs. True, SJCA has challenged several site-specific approvals of SUPOs. But it does not dispute that none of these sites contains old-growth ponderosa pines. Thus, even if, as SJCA suggests, the Project should not have been approved without changes to its treatment of old growth, that error has not play[ed] a causal role, id. at 734, 118 S.Ct. 1665, in any harm to old-growth trees. Accordingly, delaying review of the old-growth claim does not cause hardship to the interests asserted by SJCA. It can wait to bring a challenge when a site-specific SUPO threatens old growth  a time when harm is more imminent and more certain. Id. The other two ripeness factors articulated in Ohio Forestry likewise favor delay in adjudication. Judicial review of SJCA's claim at this time could hinder the Forest Service's efforts to refine its policies. When faced with a request to approve a specific well, it may wish to revise the Forest Plan; and further study may alter the factual assumptions underlying the Project, resulting in modification to site-specific drilling proposals, site-approval practices, or even the old-growth standard itself. For example, we note that the Forest Service represents that it now believes that the Project contains more than 5% old growth. We need not accept that representation as true to recognize that if such a finding were adopted before approval of a SUPO that called for cutting some old growth, the Forest Service might well adjust its analysis of the Project. As for the third factor  benefit to the judiciary  delaying review of SJCA's claim prevents time-consuming judicial consideration of an alleged injury that may never come to pass. By the time the Federal Defendants approve a well affecting the Forest's old growth, new information may demonstrate the Project's consistency with the Forest Plan or the Forest Service may have amended the Forest Plan's old-growth standard. Or, of course, a well impacting the Forest's old growth may never be approved. Accordingly, we remand SJCA's old-growth claim to the district court with instructions to vacate the portion of its judgment resolving that claim and to dismiss the claim without prejudice. See Friends of Marolt Park v. U.S. Dep't of Transp., 382 F.3d 1088, 1097 (10th Cir. 2004) (instructing district court to vacate the portion of its judgment pertaining to an unripe claim); Coal. for Sustainable Res., Inc. v. U.S. Forest Service, 259 F.3d 1244, 1253 (10th Cir.2001) (same).
SJCA argues that the Federal Defendants violated the NFMA when they approved the Project because they essentially disregarded four Forest Plan standards designed to protect species' habitat in two of the Forest's Management Areas, 4B and 5B. Area 4B is a 95,070-acre portion of the Forest that is managed primarily to maintain habitat for a variety of species. SJCA challenges the Project's compliance with two guidelines for Area 4B: (1) Maintain at least 90 percent of the habitat needed to support the State population goals for commonly hunted, fished, or trapped species (the 4B 90% Guideline). Aplts. App., Vol. I at 236. (2) Maintain habitat capability at a level of at least 80 percent of potential capability for certain wildlife species (the 4B 80% Guideline). Id. Area 5B consists of 150,110 acres of Forest land that is managed as winter range for big game species  deer, elk, bighorn sheep, and mountain goats. The Project's compliance with two guidelines for Area 5B is challenged by SJCA: (1) Maintain habitat effectiveness during winter of at least 90 percent for big game (the 5B 90% Guideline). Id. at 241. (2) Maintain habitat capability at a level at least 80 percent of potential capability for big game (the 5B 80% Guideline). Id. SJCA contends that the Federal Defendants failed to analyze the 4B and 5B 90% Guidelines anywhere in the EIS and [ROD] approving the Project, Aplts. Reply Br. at 6, and that the 4B and 5B 80% Guidelines receive[d] only a conclusory reference in the EIS that lack[ed] any administrative record support, id. at 7. By this failure, SJCA claims, the Federal Defendants violated the NFMA. As with SJCA's old-growth claim, however, a stand-alone challenge to Project approval based on inconsistency with the Forest Plan is not ripe for review. A challenge can be raised only if Project approval play[ed] a causal role with respect to an imminent harm, such as approval of a SUPO. Ohio Forestry, 523 U.S. at 734, 118 S.Ct. 1665. Perhaps such a challenge could be ripe because the Federal Defendants have approved site-specific projects within Management Areas 4B and 5B. But SJCA's briefs on appeal fail to argue, much less cite factual support for, a causal connection between the site-specific approvals and the Project's alleged inconsistencies with the Forest Plan. It did not allege any particulars regarding how the specific approvals could contribute to violation of the standards for Areas 4B or 5B. Any ripe claim is therefore waived. See Anderson v. U.S. Dep't of Labor, 422 F.3d 1155, 1174 (10th Cir.2005) (The failure to raise an issue in an opening brief waives that issue.).
SJCA contends that the Project is inconsistent with Forest Plan standards that apply to Forest Management Area 9A. The Forest Plan defines Area 9A to include the aquatic ecosystem, the riparian ecosystem ..., and adjacent ecosystems that remain within approximately 100 feet measured horizontally from both edges of all perennial streams and from the shores of lakes and other still water bodies. Aplees.-Fed. Defs. Supp.App., Vol. I at 53 (emphasis added). The Forest Service manages these ecosystems together as a land unit comprising an integrated riparian area, and not as separate components. Id. The Forest Plan limits development within Area 9A through standards and guidelines. SJCA's briefs focus on four limitations (the Area 9A standards):  Proposed new land-use facilities (roads, campgrounds, buildings) will not normally be located within flood-plain boundaries for the 100-year flood. The Forest Service must [p]rotect present and all necessary future facilities that cannot be located out of the 100-year floodplain by structural mitigation (deflection structures, riprap, etc.). Aplts. Appx., Vol. I at 246.  The Forest Service must [p]revent stream channel instability, loss of channel cross-sectional areas, and loss of water quality resulting from activities that alter vegetative cover. Id.  The Forest Service must [l]ocate mineral removal activities away from the water's edge or outside the riparian area. Id. at 249.  The Forest Service must [l]ocate roads and trails outside riparian areas unless alternative routes have been reviewed and rejected as being more environmentally damaging. Id. at 250. SJCA contends that approval of the ROD violates the NFMA because some of the Project's proposed development is located in riparian areas and the EIS acknowledged that the Project may not comply with the Area 9A standards. According to SJCA, the Federal Defendants should therefore have modified the proposal, rejected the proposal, or amended the Forest Plan, but, instead, they shirked [their] duty under NFMA by deferr[ing] the anticipated `compliance issues' until the time individual wells were approved during implementation of the Project. Aplts. Br. at 42. SJCA also claims that the Federal Defendants' site-specific approval of two wells and the associated construction of an access road and pipeline violates the Area 9A standards. We need not repeat our reasoning with respect to SJCA's other NFMA issues to state that its challenge to the Project based on violation of the Area 9A standards can be ripe only if it challenges site-specific approvals whose contribution to violation of these standards is causally related to the Project approval. On this claim, in contrast to the other NFMA claims, SJCA's appellate briefs argue this causal connection, contending that approval of two Bull Canyon wells and the associated road construction violates the Forest Plan. [1] In August 2008 the Forest Service approved the construction of the two wells and the associated reconstruction of approximately 5000 feet of the existing Bull Canyon Road, NFSR 841, which provides access to the well sites. The parties appear to agree that the two well sites themselves are not located in Area 9A. They also agree that a portion of reconstructed Bull Canyon road runs along and crosses the upper reaches of Little Bull Creek, an [i]ntermittent and [e]phemeral tributary of the Lower Piedra River. Aplts. Supp. Post-Argument App., Vol. I at 262. What the parties disagree about, however, is whether the portion of Little Bull Creek along which Bull Canyon Road runs is part of Area 9A and therefore subject to the Area 9A standards. The Federal Defendants' position is straightforward. They rely (1) on the fact (unchallenged by SJCA) that Little Bull Creek is an [i]ntermittent and [e]phemeral stream, id., and (2) the definition of Area 9A as including only areas within 100 feet of perennial streams, see Aplees.-Fed. Defs. Supp.App., Vol. I at 53. Because the portion of Bull Canyon Road addressed in the approval of the Bull Canyon wells is therefore not in Area 9A, the approval could not violate the Area 9A standards. SJCA responds that the Federal Defendants' suggest[ion] that 9A standards may not apply to non-perennial streams is a  post-hoc rationalization, and asserts that they have always recognized the standards' applicability to [non-perennial] streams. Aplts. Reply Br. at 20 n.9. SJCA appears to be invoking (without citation to any court opinions or other authority) the doctrine of SEC v. Chenery Corp., 318 U.S. 80, 63 S.Ct. 454, 87 L.Ed. 626 (1943), which does not permit an administrative agency to defend against a court challenge to an agency decision by invoking a rationale for its decision that had not been expressed in the agency's administrative proceedings. To support its assertion that the Federal Defendants had previously considered intermittent streams to be within Area 9A, SJCA primarily relies on the EIS. The EIS examined water influence zones (WIZs) to evaluate the proximity of CBM surface disturbances to surface drainages and water bodies, Aplees.-Fed. Defs. Supp.App., Vol. I at 108. For intermittent and ephemeral streams, such as Little Bull Creek, the WIZ extended 100 feet on each side of the stream. (For perennial streams it extended 300 feet on each side.) After noting the proposed new road construction adjacent to Little Bull Creek and elsewhere, the EIS stated that [r]oad construction as proposed in the WIZ would modify floodplains, increase sediment delivery, and impact water quality to a high degree in the Bull Creek watershed, [2] Aplts. App., Vol. I at 270, and that the proposed construction in the Bull Creek watershed may not comply with some of the Area 9A standards, [3] id. at 274. SJCA also claims support for its position in (1) a memo written by a forest hydrologist, which states that in the Bull Creek watershed the WIZ include[s] ... an area 100 feet from the exterior edge of any stream, id., Vol. II at 444, and (2) a hard-to-read map which may show Bull Canyon Road crossing a WIZ. But the EIS and other statements relied on by SJCA do not purport to redefine the boundaries of Area 9A, nor do they unequivocally state that the Bull Canyon Road, or the portion pertinent to our inquiry, is in Area 9A. That the EIS analyzed effects on water quality throughout a WIZ that included significantly more than Area 9A reflects the exhaustive breadth of the EIS, not its interpretation of the Forest Plan. In our view, the Federal Defendants' argument is not barred by Chenery. The record contains the Forest Plan's definition of Area 9A and the Federal Defendants' description of Little Bull Creek as an ephemeral or intermittent stream. No further analysis is necessary to determine that Little Bull Creek is not in Area 9A. Perhaps there is an ambiguity in the Federal Defendants' Supplemental Information Report that supported approval of the Bull Canyon wells and associated road construction. It said simply that no riparian zones would be affected by the proposed construction. Id. at 576. One might interpret the statement as saying that even though there is proposed construction in riparian zones, they will not be affected. But the more natural reading is that the construction would not be in riparian zones. And if SJCA had been uncertain about the matter, it could have objected to the well approval in administrative proceedings on the ground that Area 9A standards would be violated. Indeed, its failure to raise that objection in the administrative proceedings would have foreclosed our consideration of the issue if any defendant had raised an exhaustion defense. See Forest Guardians v. U.S. Forest Service, 641 F.3d 423, 430 (10th Cir.2011) (Plaintiffs must exhaust available administrative remedies before the [Forest Service] prior to bringing their grievances to federal court.) Accordingly, we hold that the approval of the Bull Canyon wells could not have violated the Area 9A standards because the well pads and their associated construction are not within Area 9A. And absent a challenge to site-specific approvals within Area 9A, SJCA has no ripe challenge to Project approval based on alleged violations of Forest Plan requirements for that area. We therefore remand to the district court to vacate its judgment on SJCA's Area 9A claims and to dismiss them without prejudice. As for SJCA's Area 9A challenge to the approval of the Bull Canyon wells and associated road construction, we reject the challenge on the merits.