Opinion ID: 2585012
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: Is There a Valid Sustained Yield Plan Document?

Text: Petitioners [13] contend there was no single, agreed-upon SYP that has been approved, and that the CDF director's approval of the SYP must therefore be invalid. We agree. As discussed, various federal and state agencies approved several interrelated documents: an EIS/EIR, an HCP and an SYP. The final EIS/EIR was circulated in January 1999, and contained an appendix Q, which purported to identify the final SYP. Appendix Q states: This [f]inal EIS/EIR constitutes the final HCP/SYP. To reduce the volume of paper associated with finalizing the six-volume proposed HCP/SYP, it is incorporated here by reference. To ensure that all requirements of the SYP are met, and that key components can be located easily, the following crosswalk is provided. It indicates the primary location where information may be found; it is not all-inclusive, and relevant information may be found in other sections. Except as noted, volume and part references refer to [Pacific Lumber's] July 1998 draft SYP/HCP. The crosswalk then references the topics that are required to be addressed in the SYP together with the volume and section in which the topic is addressed in the draft SYP/HCP. For example, [s]ustained timber production assessment is found in Volume I, Part C, . . . and Part E, and Fish and wildlife assessment is found in Volumes I, II, and IV. Pacific Lumber argues that appendix Q and the documents to which it refers constitute the final SYP. As petitioners point out, however, there are several problems with relying on appendix Q to definitively set forth the contents of the final SYP. First, by its own terms, it is not all-inclusive, and relevant information may be found in other sections. Second, appendix Q purports to incorporate the six-volume draft SYP circulated for public review. Yet in a document that was prepared for the trial court below, CDF made clear that substantial portions of the Public Review Draft SYP had been superseded, noting in the margins of the table of contents of the Public Review Draft SYP those portions that had been replaced by the final EIS/EIR. Thus, the appendix Q crosswalk, in referencing a Public Review Draft SYP that had been substantially superseded, failed to give an accurate picture of the document's contents at the time the SYP was approved by the CDF director on March 1, 1999. Third, appendix Q is included in a January 1999 document. Additional information was provided by Pacific Lumber in February 1999 that the CDF Director relied on for his March 1, 1999 approval of the SYP. On February 16, 1999, Pacific Lumber presented CDF with a lengthy document entitled Updated Sustained Yield Planning Information, with extensive supplemental information pertaining to the long-term sustained yield estimate. Pacific Lumber on February 23, 1999, provided further extensive information on alternative 25A, which contemplated a conifer harvest of approximately 136.6 mmbf per year for the first decade in response to a CDF request. Along with providing that information, Pacific Lumber made clear it believed that this alternative was infeasible inasmuch as it contemplated a lower harvest than Pacific Lumber found economically viable. On February 25, 1999, the Director approved the SYP with alternative 25A. On February 28, 1999, Pacific Lumber again supplied extensive additional information, this time targeted to alternative 25, which contemplated the higher conifer harvest of 178.8 mmbf per year for the first decade. The Director eventually chose alternative 25. None of the voluminous supplemental information on which the Director partly based his decision is included in appendix Q. CDF, in contrast to Pacific Lumber, does not contend that appendix Q represents the definitive SYP. Rather, it claims that the CDF Director's March 1, 1999 and February 25, 1999 letters approving the SYP contain a description of the location of the substantive information which comprises the various components of the Sustained Yield Plan required by the Forest Practice Rules. As the CDF Director stated in the March 1, 1999 letter, his determination that the SYP was in conformance with Forest Practice Rules was [b]ased upon analysis of the revised draft of [the SYP] submitted by [Pacific Lumber] in July of 1998 in combination with provisions of the HCP, EIS/EIR, supplemental information received from [Pacific Lumber] on February 16, 1999, responses from Pacific Lumber to watershed questions received on February 23, 1999, and with additional information provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California Department of Fish and Game.... Yet the Director's terse statement in this approval letter cannot be regarded as setting forth a definitive SYP. First, the letter refers to the Public Review Draft SYP, a substantial portion of which, as discussed above, had been superseded. The Director's approval does not specify which portions of the draft SYP are to be included in the final SYP, which parts of the final EIS/EIR are to be included, or how the draft SYP dovetails with the February 16, 1999 and February 23, 1999 documents to which the Director's approval also refers. Second, the document refers nonspecifically to additional information provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the California Department of Fish and Game.... That the contents of the draft SYP were unsettled at the time of its approval is further evidenced by a communication on March 15, 1999, two weeks after the SYP was approved. CDF project manager John Munn requested within a relatively short time frame supplemental SYP materials, in order to meet the requirements of the SYP, including [a] consolidated version of the material submitted by [Pacific Lumber] in support of Alternative 25 and related responses to CDF questions, Appendix Q in the EIS/EIR, and information from the July 1998 public review draft of the SYP/HCP that is still applicable to the approved SYP and Habitat Conservation Plan. (Italics added.) There is nothing in the record indicating that Pacific Lumber ever complied with this request. (7) It is noteworthy, then, that even Pacific Lumber and CDF do not appear to agree on what constitutes the final SYPโthe former would find it in appendix Q, the latter in the February 25 and March 1, 1999 letters of approval. As explained at greater length below, the SYP is intended to be relied on by Pacific Lumber and CDF and other government agencies in determining whether Pacific Lumber's logging activities, as described in its timber harvest plans, are lawful. As also discussed below, Public Resources Code section 4551.3 contemplates a role for the public in monitoring compliance with an SYP after it has been approved. As we recently reaffirmed in the analogous case of an EIR: The data in an EIR must not only be sufficient in quantity, it must be presented in a manner calculated to adequately inform the public and decision makers, who may not be previously familiar with the details of the project. `[I]nformation scattered here and there in EIR appendices, or a report buried in an appendix, is not a substitute for a good faith reasoned analysis.' ( Vineyard Area Citizens for Responsible Growth, Inc. v. City of Rancho Cordova (2007) 40 Cal.4th 412, 442 [53 Cal.Rptr.3d 821, 150 P.3d 709].) Similarly, basic confusion about the contents of an unconsolidated SYP scattered over a voluminous administrative record does not allow the public and decision makers to readily know those contents and use the SYP for the purposes for which it was intended. And the fact that the information and analysis contained in the various environmental documents Pacific Lumber submitted is so extensive makes the need for an easily identifiable document all the greater. (8) Moreover, the Steelworkers convincingly argue that the Director improperly delegated to Pacific Lumber the task of determining the final contents of the SYP. As noted, the Director charged Pacific Lumber, in the March 1, 1999 letter approving the SYP, with preparing an updated report based on alternative 25 that contains the SYP information contained in Appendix Q to the EIS/EIR and incorporates information from the July, 1998 public review draft of the SYP/HCP, and would include unspecified information from various documents provided by Pacific Lumber and by certain government agencies in February 1999. In effect, the Director was giving Pacific Lumber the task of revising appendix Q, in light of the new information about alternative 25. This revision was to incorporate unspecified sections of the Public Review Draft SYP, and which sections were to be incorporated was to be apparently left, at least initially, to Pacific Lumber's judgment. John Munn's March 15, 1999 postapproval letter discussed above also refers to Pacific Lumber assembling portions of documents still applicable in a final SYP. As the Steelworkers state: Whether or not an agency may delegate to a private party the duty of consolidating various identified documents into a final plan ..., there should be no question that an agency cannot delegate to a private party the responsibility of determining what it is that the agency approved. This is a core agency function. We agree. CDF and Pacific Lumber argue that any confusion about what constitutes a final SYP can be rectified in administrative proceedings pursuant to Public Resources Code section 4551.3. This was the position taken by the Court of Appeal, which reasoned that [a]n integrated document was not a condition precedent to approval of the Sustained Yield Plan; it was a condition subsequent, and if that condition was not met, petitioners could avail themselves of the remedies set forth in Public Resources Code section 4551.3, which provides for `continuing monitoring' of an approved sustained yield plan by the Department of Forestry, including a hearing whenever an interested party comes forth with evidence of potential noncompliance with the terms and conditions of the approval of a sustained yield plan. The Court of Appeal therefore concluded that the assertion by [petitioners] to the trial court in the administrative mandamus proceedings that [Pacific Lumber] failed to provide the integrated document was misdirected and premature. When an administrative remedy is provided by statute, relief must be sought from the administrative body and exhausted before the courts will act. [Citations.] The remedy available to [petitioners] was to request a hearing by the Department of Forestry pursuant to section 4551.3 of the Public Resources Code. Having failed to exhaust their administrative remedies, the environmental plaintiffs and the Steelworkers were not entitled to assert that [Pacific Lumber] failed to comply with the condition for approval of the Sustained Yield Plan. Public Resources Code section 4551.3, to which the Court of Appeal opinion refers, states in pertinent part: (b) As part of the continuing monitoring process for an approved sustained yield plan ..., the department shall hold a public hearing on the plan if requested by an interested party who submits, in writing, a request based on substantial evidence of potential noncompliance with any of the following: [ถ] (1) The terms and conditions of the original sustained yield plan approval. [ถ] (2) The applicable provisions of the rules or regulations adopted by the board that were in effect on the date the sustained yield plan was originally approved. [ถ] (3) Other requirements that have been imposed on the sustained yield plan by operation of law. [ถ] (c) The request shall identify specific issues in the plan to be addressed at the public hearing. To be considered, a request shall be made to the department within six months after the midpoint of the effective term of a sustained yield plan described in subdivision (a). The department shall hold the public hearing within 120 days after the date of the close of the six-month request period. A sustained yield plan shall be effective for the remainder of its term unless the director makes written findings, based on a preponderance of evidence, that implementation of the sustained yield plan is not in compliance with any material provision of paragraph (1), (2), or (3) of subdivision (b). (Italics added.) (9) It is difficult to fathom how the procedures and remedies set forth in Public Resources Code section 4551.3 address petitioners' objections to the SYP. That statute, which contemplates continued monitoring of the manner in which the SYP is implemented, presupposes an SYP in its final form that can be monitored, i.e., a clear, written plan that can be compared to the plan as executed. If there is uncertainty about what constitutes the final SYP, then it is difficult to see how Public Resources Code section 4551.3's monitoring provisions can address this shortcoming. This point is underscored by the provisions in subdivision (c) that the shortcomings be raised in a hearing approximately midway through the term of the SYP's operation. Subdivision (a) of the statute provides that an SYP may be effective for a period of up to 10 years, and that is the effective period for the SYP in the present case. Section 4551.3 was plainly not meant to be used to cure inadequacies in an SYP present at the time the document was approved, but rather to remedy deficiencies in implementing the document that have become clear over time. CDF and Pacific Lumber also argue the shortcoming identified by petitioners amounts to merely a formatting problem, that there is nothing in the Forest Practice Rules that require an SYP to be a consolidated document, and that, in any case, there is a lack of prejudice from not producing such a consolidated document. In support of this argument, CDF cites an e-mail from project manager John Munn on January 13, 1999, indicating that the usability of the final document was `primarily a matter of formatting.' But that quotation, placed in its proper context, does not support CDF's argument. As Munn wrote: There is still some question about what constitutes the final document. The HCP included as Appendix P to the EIS/EIR appears to be self-contained. The SYP discussion contained in Appendix Q, however, relies heavily on reference to the draft SYP/HCP. Does this mean that the final package consists of the new EIS/EIR, Responses to Comments, the draft SYP/HCP and an additional addendum (or appendix?) that includes the updated SYP information? This is primarily a question of formatting. Would it be possible to give conditional approval based on the company preparing a consolidated document containing SYP information? If not, I assume that this could be accomplished by preparing a working document following approval. Somehow, we have to end up with a usable document. Thus, the above quotation indicates that the CDF soil erosion studies project manager made clear that in its then-current state, the document was not usable. There is no indication that the shortcomings identified in Munn's e-mail were ever corrected. On the contrary, the subsequent information that CDF received and considered in approving the SYP in February 1999, made the identification of a single, usable document even more problematic. Munn's postapproval letter of March 15, 1999, quoted above, continues the same theme, asking Pacific Lumber to expeditiously update and supplement various documents into a complete SYP. There can be no question that approval of a final document that is usable by the government agencies and by the public in monitoring the SYP is required. Indeed, the fact that the Forest Practice Rules contemplate an SYP that can be filed (FP Rules, ง 1091.10) strongly supports the idea that there must be a specific document that CDF, and the public, can turn to for the purposes served by the SYP. As explained, CDF and Pacific Lumber have yet to identify or agree upon a definitive SYP. For these reasons, we reject CDF and Pacific Lumber's argument that the lack of an identifiable SYP was not prejudicial. Although minor ambiguities in what constitutes a final SYP may be harmless, here the ambiguity as to the SYP's contents was sufficiently substantial that CDF staff did not consider the document to be readily usable. Moreover, the fact that the Director of CDF improperly delegated to Pacific Lumber the task of finalizing the contents of the SYP after it was approved, abdicating the agency's basic function of making that determination itself, appears to be the kind of error that is not amenable to harmless error analysis. And even if it were proper for CDF to promulgate a condition subsequent to approval of the SYP that it be finalized by the consolidation of various unspecified documents, there is no indication that this condition was ever met. We conclude that in failing to approve an identifiable final SYP, CDF failed to proceed according to law, and that such error was prejudicial. The parties have not briefed the remedy for this deficiency. That question, and the related question of the procedures appropriate for resubmitting an adequate, identifiable SYP for approval, should be addressed on remand.