Opinion ID: 170421
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Barney Top Resource Management Project

Text: The Forest Service designed the Project to suppress the spread of destructive spruce beetles among spruce and fir trees and to improve the distribution of age classes among spruce, fir, and aspens over a four- to six-year period. The Project encompasses a 3,585 acre area of forest land situated on the Barney Top and Table Cliff plateaus and provides for the treatment of 643 acres of Engleman spruce/sub-alpine fir and seventy-three acres of aspen forest. Specifically, the Project calls for 453 acres of conifer thinning, ninety-one acres of pre-commercial thinning, 118 acres of conifer sanitation/salvage harvesting, five acres of meadow restoration, and seventy-three acres of aspen harvesting and prescribed burning. The Forest Service contends the treatment will reduce current tree mortality from spruce beetles in the spruce/fir forest by creating stand conditions that do not promote spruce beetles or disease. The Project's Environmental Assessment (EA) asserts the treatments will also maintain the presence of aspens by rectifying an imbalance in aspen age classes that has facilitated conifer succession. Aplt. App., vol. 6 at 2374. The Project includes a number of secondary actions designed to enable completion of its primary objectives. The EA calls for the reconstruction of 1.70 miles of existing road, the addition of 1.92 miles of presently unclassified road to the classified road system, the closure of 1.87 miles of road to motorized vehicle used by the public, the use of Forest Road 132 as a haul route, id. at 2383, and application of magnesium chloride as needed for dust abatement for approximately five miles of [Forest Road] 132. Id. at 2387. Additionally, the Project requires control lines to prevent the spread of the prescribed burn beyond the targeted acreage. Id. at 2389, 2383. The Forest Service conducted an EA of the project and issued a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI). UEC brought an administrative appeal, which resulted in an affirmance of the Forest Services' decision. UEC then filed a complaint in the district court contending that the Project violated NEPA, NFMA, and the Forest Plan. The district court granted summary judgment for the Forest Service. On appeal, UEC asserts that the Forest Service violated NEPA by failing to properly analyze: (1) the environmental impacts of magnesium chloride (road salt) application to the Project's main road, and (2) the environmental impacts of fireline construction. UEC also contends that the Forest Service violated NFMA and the Forest Plan (1) by failing to ensure the requisite quantity of viable old growth forest, and (2) by failing to ensure the viability of species dependent on old growth, specifically the northern goshawk. We address each argument in turn.