Opinion ID: 3034729
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: reliance on the bull-sweats eis

Text: Native Ecosystems challenges the Forest Service’s reliance on the Bull-Sweats Project EIS as a demonstration that the NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15153 Jimtown Project will not have a significant effect on the environment. The 1996 Bull-Sweats Project was simply a larger version of the same type of fuels reduction project proposed for the Jimtown area. The Forest Service prepared an EIS for Bull-Sweats, which was incorporated by reference into the Jimtown documentation. In concluding that an EIS was not necessary for the Jimtown Project, the Forest Service observed that the proposed management practices were not unique and that monitoring of other projects, particularly the nearby Bull-Sweats Project, documented that such projects did not have significant effects. Native Ecosystems points to a Forest Service monitoring log to conclude, based on a lack of goshawk sightings in the Bull-Sweats Project area after 1998, that the project somehow eliminated goshawks resident in the project area prior to the Bull-Sweats thinning. The Forest Service offers a very different interpretation of the log, noting that field monitoring showed that goshawks in the Bull-Sweats area change nest sites each year regardless of logging activity and that goshawks are not averse to occupying nest sites close to logged areas. Further, according to the Forest Service, the monitoring data “demonstrates that thinning can be done in a way that will not eliminate local goshawk territories, but that large stand replacement fires will eliminate them.” (citations to administrative record omitted). We defer to the Forest Service’s explanation of the log. Native Ecosystems tries to create a facade of high controversy by citing to comments submitted by Dr. Sara Jane Johnson, a wildlife biologist and representative of Native Ecosystems. Dr. Johnson concluded the monitoring log demonstrated that the Bull-Sweats Project eliminated a pair of goshawks. “When specialists express conflicting views, an agency must have discretion to rely on the reasonable opinions of its own qualified experts even if, as an original matter, a court might find contrary views more persuasive.” Marsh v. Oregon Natural Res. Council, 490 U.S. 360, 378 (1989). The 15154 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS Forest Service’s conclusion that the Bull-Sweats Project did not have a significant effect on goshawks and their habitat (and its reliance on this conclusion in the Jimtown EA and DN/FONSI) was not arbitrary and capricious. In summary, the Forest Service’s consideration and application of the Reynolds Report goshawk habitat recommendations in its NEPA documentation defeats Native Ecosystems’s attempt to characterize the Jimtown Project’s impacts as highly uncertain or controversial. Dr. Johnson’s interpretation of the Reynolds Report and goshawk monitoring data simply does not rise to the high level of controversy that was present in other Ninth Circuit cases where we faulted the agency review. See Sierra Club, 843 F.2d at 1193-94 (noting testimony from numerous experts that demonstrate the inadequacies of an EA); Blue Mountains, 161 F.3d at 1213 (explaining that a Forest Service EA failed to consider a report on postfire logging despite the specific directions of the regional forest supervisor to do so); National Parks, 241 F.3d at 736 (noting that eight-five percent of 450 comments received during administrative review opposed the EA’s preferred alternative). Nor will we “take sides in a battle of the experts,” id. at 736 n.14, as the Forest Service considered and applied the Reynolds Report and provided a thorough and reasoned explanation for its rejection of Dr. Johnson’s position. 2. CUMULATIVE EFFECTS ANALYSIS [10] Although we conclude that the project-specific challenges to the Jimtown Project EA withstand scrutiny, our analysis does not end there. In determining whether an action is significant for the purposes of preparing an EIS, an agency must consider “whether the action is related to other actions with individually insignificant but cumulatively significant impacts.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.27(b)(7) (2000).9 The regulations further provide: 9 “Cumulative impact” is defined as “the impact on the environment which results from the incremental impact of the action when added to NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS 15155 Significance exists if it is reasonable to anticipate a cumulatively significant impact on the environment. Significance cannot be avoided by terming an action temporary or by breaking it down into small compo- nent parts. Id. In accord with the regulatory directives, the Forest Service offered extensive analysis of the cumulative impacts of the Jimtown Project. A review of the DN/FONSI reveals an articulate and careful cumulative effects analysis that took into consideration the impacts of the Cave Gulch fire, the 1986 North Hills fire, two minor thinning projects, and the BullSweats Project. The DN/FONSI recognized that within the cumulative effects area—defined as 29,900 acres—three goshawk home ranges exist, and within each home range, the Forest Service identified the necessary components of goshawk habitat. The DN/FONSI then detailed, from a quantitative perspective, the impact of the project on nest sites and acreage suitable as goshawk habitat. The Forest Service concluded the Jimtown Project’s impact on the immediate goshawk home range will not cause it to fall below the Reynolds Report acreage recommendations for nesting, post-fledgling family, and foraging areas, let alone result in a cumulatively significant effect when considered in light of other recent projects and fires in this area of the Helena National Forest. Because significant evidence in the record supports the Forest Service’s conclusion that the goshawk’s home range will remain viable under the Jimtown Project, we conclude that the Forest Service easily satisfies the standard we articulated in Neighbors of Cuddy Mountain I: “To ‘consider’ cumulative effects, some quantified or detailed information is required. other past, present, and reasonably foreseeable future actions regardless of what agency (Federal or non-Federal) or person undertakes such other actions. Cumulative impacts can result from individually minor but collectively significant actions taking place over a period of time.” 40 C.F.R. § 1508.7 (2000). 15156 NATIVE ECOSYSTEMS v. USFS Without such information, neither the courts nor the public, in reviewing the Forest Service’s decisions, can be assured that the Forest Service provided the hard look that it is required to provide.” 137 F.3d at 1379.10