Opinion ID: 174457
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: ONDA Protests the Proposed Southeast Oregon Plan and EIS

Text: In December 2001, ONDA filed a protest with the BLM of the Plan and final EIS. See 43 C.F.R. § 1610.5-2 (describing protest procedures). The protest sounded the same themes ONDA had raised in its comments on the draft EIS: First, ONDA again charged that the BLM had failed to analyze wilderness values in the EIS and Plan. It cited several instances in which BLM employees had informed ONDA, when pressed, of changed circumstances in areas outside of WSAs such as planned construction and development projects that never occurred, and pointed out that ONDA and the general public have no idea how many additional instances of new information and changed circumstances exist with respect to non-recommended wilderness areas, because the EIS does not address the matter. This failure to provide information on wilderness values, ONDA argued, violated NEPA's requirement that the Bureau engage in fully-informed decisionmaking. ONDA further argued that the BLM's response to ONDA's comments on the draft EIS, in which the Bureau had maintained that its wilderness obligations were at an end with the completion of the 1991 wilderness report, was mistaken. It contended that the BLM had a continuing duty to inventory wilderness values on its lands under 43 U.S.C. § 1711 and that it could protect lands with such values using the broad multiple use authority provided by 43 U.S.C. § 1712. Second, ONDA raised concerns over the limited alternatives considered in the EIS for grazing management, as well as the EIS's alleged failure to consider the cumulative impacts of grazing. Third, ONDA contended that, as the BLM had consider[ed] no alternative that closes more than 0.8% of the public lands within the planning area to ORV use, the Bureau had committed a clear violation of NEPA's alternatives requirement. The BLM denied the protest in September 2002. It considered ONDA's comments in some detail: First, as it had done in response to ONDA's comments on the draft EIS, the BLM construed ONDA's concerns as requesting that it reassess the recommendations it made in its 1991 wilderness report, conducted under 43 U.S.C. § 1782. It again explained that the § 1782 wilderness review was a one-time responsibility. It dismissed ONDA's NEPA concerns regarding wilderness issues summarily as not . . . clear. The BLM answered ONDA's concerns over the grazing alternatives analysis by stating that the alternatives it had considered would have different effects [from each other] in both the short and long term. And it responded to ONDA's concerns over ORVs by stating that the limited designation would provid[e] a comparable degree of protection as the closed designation, and that the alternative analysis was therefore sufficient. The BLM then adopted the Plan and EIS in a record of decision (ROD), see 40 C.F.R. § 1505.2, and announced its availability in April 2003. See Notice of Availability of the Record of Decision for the Southeastern Oregon Resource Management Plan and Final Environmental Impact Statement, 68 Fed.Reg. 16,307 (Apr. 3, 2003).