Opinion ID: 166930
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Road Length

Text: 41 The Conservation Groups claim that the Forest Service erred in permitting one-half mile of temporary road construction in the new CEs. Of the 154 timber harvest projects the Forest Service reviewed, 35 involved an average of one-half mile of temporary road construction. Finding no significant environmental impacts from these 35 projects, the Forest Service determined to include one-half mile of temporary road construction in the new CEs. The Conservation Groups maintain that [g]iven that the Forest Service's approach was to base the [CEs] on the typical [project] amongst those reviewed, the result should have been to eliminate roads from the [CEs], as the typical [timber harvest project] had no roads. Aplt. Br. at 22-23. The Conservation Groups argue alternatively that if the Forest Service was determined to include temporary road construction in the CEs, it should have used the average road length for all 154 projects, giving road lengths of zero to the timber harvest projects it reviewed without roads. 42 Both these arguments are wanting. The Forest Service's purpose for reviewing the timber harvest projects was to determine whether particular activities normally have significant environmental impacts. To determine whether timber harvest projects containing temporary road construction have significant environmental impacts, the Forest Service logically looked to the data collected from those projects it reviewed which contained road construction, i.e., the relevant data. Motor Vehicle Mfrs., 463 U.S. at 43, 103 S.Ct. 2856. It would have, in fact, been against reason for the Forest Service to consider timber harvest projects without road construction because they add nothing to the determination of whether this particular activity, temporary road construction, normally has significant environmental impacts. The Forest Services's decision to confine its analysis to those timber harvest projects containing temporary road construction was not, therefore, arbitrary or capricious. 43