Opinion ID: 153019
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: Clearly needed to reduce risks

Text: In a related error, the Forest Service fails to establish that the Five Buttes Project is clearly needed to reduce risks. In the one page section of the EIS discussing adherence to the three NWFP's Standards and Guidelines's requirements for logging within LSRs, under the heading the activities are clearly needed to reduce risks, the Forest Service offers the following analysis and justification for the project: The project area also includes the 21,000acre Davis Fire of 2003; many thousands of acres of late successional habitat and large trees were lost in this fire. Vegetation management activities are needed because vegetative conditions are such that risk of more large scale loss of large trees and latestructure forest is extremely high. For instance, existing overstory ponderosa pine and Douglasfir can not compete with true fir in overcrowded conditions. The trend in these forests is for the largetree component to decline due to overcrowding from and competition with younger, smaller trees. Five Buttes Project Environmental Impact Statement 359(EIS). These four sentences mark the entirety of the EIS's discussion of why the Five Buttes Project is clearly needed to reduce risks. The reasoning is unsupported and conclusory. Without determining the likelihood of another large fire, the Forest Service relies on the relatively recent 2003 Davis Fire to justify fire risk reduction at any cost: Although there is no way to predict the severity or timing of these events, the 21,000-acre Davis Fire of 2003 resulted in the loss of at least 5,090 acres of [nesting-roosting-foraging habitat]. Since vegetation conditions similar to those associated with the Davis Fire still exist on the landscape and would not change under Alternative A, the risk of another large-scale fire like the Davis Fire is high. EIS at 108. The aftermath of the Davis Fire may have left lingering concerns that another large fire is inevitable, but the Forest Service has an obligation under the NWFP's Standards and Guidelines to be sure that the proposed management activities are clearly needed to reduce the risk of fire or insect infestation. To assume another Davis type fire will occur based on the 2003 Davis fire alone is unsound. By that reasoning, the fact that the old-growth trees that the Five Buttes Project intends to log are over a hundred years old and have not burned in all that time proves that a large fire will not occur for another hundred years. Here, at the very least, the Forest Service should have factored into its decision-making process (1) the frequency of major fires in the Deschutes National Forest and (2) the number of actual ignitions each year. Instead, the Forest Service relies on a computer simulation that uses 500 ignitions and locates starts on top of owl habitat. [7] Of course the result seems apocalyptic. But it is not grounded in any actual information about fire frequency on the Deschutes or the likelihood of another Davis-type fire. Finally, the final two sentences of the four sentence explanation for how the Five Buttes Project will clearly reduce risk are entirely non-responsive to the question of risk reduction and seem to weigh against, not in favor of, harvesting old-growth trees to reduce fire. That is, if the natural trend is for the large tree component to decline, why is the agency in a rush to cut large trees? The natural forest process appears to result in a reduction of large-tree density and, thereby, decreases the likelihood of a crown fire all on its own. Without providing a basis for the level of assumed fire risk, it is impossible to say that a 40 percent reduction in risk justifies the guaranteed risk of commercial logging: the destruction of 618 acres of owl habitat for 20-50 years. Logging within late-successional forests inside a LSR is permitted only where the proposed logging is not just needed, but rather clearly needed to reduce risks. The NWFP's Standards and Guidelines squarely place the burden on the Forest Service to establish that an exception to the general prohibition on logging applies. See Brong, 492 F.3d at 1120. The Forest Service in the present case has not carried that burden. Despite the majority's accusation to the contrary, I am well aware that it is not our role to second-guess the Forest Service's approach. The Forest Service's approval of the Five Buttes Project is given considerable deference. As the Supreme Court has pointed out in another context, however, the principle has its limits. Deference does not mean acquiescence. Presley v. Etowah County Comm'n, 502 U.S. 491, 508, 112 S.Ct. 820, 117 L.Ed.2d 51 (1992). Here, the Forest Service has approved a LSR treatment project that does not, in my view, comply with the NWFP's Standards and Guidelines's three criteria for logging old-growth trees in a LSR. The Forest Service's conclusion to the contrary suffers from basic flaws in the agency's reasoningsuch as, for example, a failure to (1) weigh the costs alongside the benefits of the proposed action, (2) calculate the actual value of the estimated benefit of Alternative C, and (3) consider an alternative treatment plan that would not include logging inside the Davis LSRand the agency's approval of the Five Buttes Project is therefore arbitrary, capricious, an abuse of discretion, or otherwise not in accordance with law. 5 U.S.C. § 706(2)(A).